Ain't No Sunshine
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Trip invites Hoshi and Malcolm to visit him at his parents' home in Florida. A week's shore leave brings danger and deceit when Section 31 get into the picture...
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story has been been beta-read by VesperRegina, to whom I am - as always - deeply indebted for her time and invaluable help.**

 **Warning. Whilst not graphic, this story deals with adult issues and features some violence. If stories of this nature offend you, please do not read it.**

 **Author's Note: This story follows on from 'Moth to the Flame', though it is not, strictly speaking, a sequel to it.**

* * *

 _Reed_

"Is this chair taken, by any chance?"

Even after so many years and so many momentous recent developments, I keep my voice quiet and impersonal. There is nothing whatsoever in my demeanour as I slip into the vacant seat in the Mess Hall for lunch that would indicate to the keenest observer that I'm now sitting in the company of two other officers who make up the other component parts of a strictly unofficial _ménage à trois_ aboard _Enterprise_.

To give them their due, I'd never guess it from their behaviour either, if I'd been an outside observer. From the outset I've insisted that our personal lives must be kept strictly separate from our professional ones; once I don my uniform or they theirs, then no hint of our personal relationship must be allowed to seep in. This is a practice in which I became adept in the service of Section 31, and it's completely natural to me by now – but I know that it's harder for them. This was especially true in the beginning, but they're definitely getting the hang of it now. There must be no speaking looks or stolen caresses, or anything else that does not belong in our professional roles. Even when we're unobserved the pretence must be maintained. To do anything else would be to undermine our ability to maintain it under pressure.

Hoshi sets down her cup of coffee and smiles at me. There's a small moustache of cream on her delectable upper lip, and I know that Trip too is wishing that one or both of us could lean forward and lick it off, but instead I politely offer a napkin.

"We'll be home in a couple of days," she says unnecessarily, after the cleaning-up operation is completed. "Have you sirs made any plans what you're going to do on shore leave?"

"Reckon I'll be goin' home to see my folks." Trip leans back in his chair. "Two weeks, with nothing to do but maybe a little fishin'… I think I could handle that. You plannin' on visitin' England, Malcolm? Or you got any other ideas?"

"I actually don't have any settled plans at all." I note that Hoshi's dessert spoon is pointing to the left, indicating she is interested in having company this evening. Trip's is turned upside down, indicating that he will be too busy; unfortunately, life on board a starship sometimes means that your supposedly 'free' time is not, in fact, your own at all, and as the heads of our respective departments this happens to both Trip and myself quite regularly. Fortunately, as far as I know (and there's plenty of time for that to change), I myself will be free this evening. Unobtrusively I move the salt cellar slightly, as though finding its juxtaposition to the pepper pot aesthetically displeasing.

Perhaps thirty seconds later, Hoshi picks up her cup and drinks from it; she doesn't set it down at once, however, but sips from it a second time.

The arrangements thereby having been made, I can relax and concentrate on the prospect of shore leave.

The idea of visiting England briefly has naturally occurred to me, but I recognise that my motives in visiting my family would be mixed. Maddie, naturally, would be delighted to see me. My parents? Well, Mother would be pleased, in her soft, crushed sort of way, but as for Father … maybe it would be interesting to see how the old man would react to the 'family failure' whose ship single-handedly saved Earth from destruction at the hands of the Xindi. Maybe finally there might be some word or even a look of recognition that the 'runt' was good for something after all, for all that he'd chosen a career in Starfleet rather than the Royal Navy.

 _There again, maybe not._ As for wanting to return to the land of my birth, well, yes, I'm occasionally profoundly homesick for the changeful skies of home, but I suspect I'm still too likely to be recognised and hounded from the moment I set foot there. I've had vague thoughts of going skiing somewhere, perhaps in Austria, but I haven't bestirred myself to make any arrangements. I prefer to visit out-of-the-way places, where I'll be less likely to be plagued by well-wishers and journalists. At first, true, I'll admit I enjoyed the kudos of being regarded as 'a hero of the Expanse' (however bitterly ironic that title might have been), but it soon palled. Even the admiration and availability of women wasn't sufficient compensation for the utter lack of privacy, and by now all I want is anonymity in my chosen resort.

"How 'bout you, Hoshi?"

"I'll be flying back to Japan for a week or so. My _jiichan_ – sorry, my grandfather – he hasn't been so well lately. I'd like to pay him a visit."

We both murmur the conventional words hoping her grandfather's health will improve.

"Still, I don't want to spend all my time over there," she adds, glancing from one to the other of us. "I've got a few days free after that, if anything interesting comes up."

Trip smiles. "Don't know about you, but I always tend to find the most interestin' things come up right when you're not expectin' them to."

I spread butter on my roll, sternly repressing a smile on my own account. The two of them are getting really good at this lark. Even if what's being proposed doesn't really fit into the range of subjects that it's appropriate to discuss _in uniform._

"Got a good-sized place, my folks," the chief engineer goes on airily. "Just converted one of the barns into a livin' space, in case any of us feel like bringin' our families or a few friends with us for a visit."

"I'm sure they'll be really pleased to see you again. Enjoy the fishing… or whatever else you get up to." Hoshi finishes her coffee, demurely folds her napkin, and leaves the table.

"Just make sure no other members of the tribe have got their beady eyes on it first," I advise, swallowing a mouthful of soup. "Otherwise if you invite company, things could get rather crowded."

Trip chuckles. "I know you're the tactical officer around here, Malcolm, but that's just basic precautions. I'm real choosy about who I share my space with, I'll have you know."

"Judging by the characters you've ended up with since we set out, I strongly contest that statement." _One, two…_

Right on cue, my sparring partner inflates like an indignant bullfrog. "Ah'll have you know Ah was the perfect…"

I duck my head to the soup, grinning, and let the rest of Trip's protestations go in one ear and out the other.

I already know what I'm going to do with at least some of my shore leave.

All that remains to settle are the details.

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

_Sato_

The chime rings only a few moments after it would have been _exceptionally ill-timed._

As it is, I lift my head from Malcolm's still rapidly rising and falling chest, and call out – in a voice that tries hard not to sound either guilty or breathless, just in case – "Who is it?"

"Just bringin' you that PADD you asked me to check out, Ensign."

"Come in, Trip."

I feel the body beside me quake with silent laughter at the double meaning of that reply, and the two of us glance up as the door opens. Sure enough, the new arrival does indeed have the PADD in his hand that I'd handed him in the Mess Hall yesterday evening, but by the careless way he tosses it on to the desk he doesn't seem to feel there had been anything very seriously wrong with it – if, indeed, there was anything at all.

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes." Trip glances across the cabin at the two of us still twined together on the bunk. "Give me a minute to get these clothes off and I'll be with ya."

"You're the chief engineer, can't you find some excuse to extend this bunk?" Malcolm grumbles, bestirring himself sufficiently to shift over a little. "It's bloody cramped with two of us in it. Three of us is the outside of enough."

"I can find an excuse, sure, but the problem would be gettin' the cap'n to sign it off." He grins, pushing down his pants. He's already showered; his hair is still sticking up in damp points from the quick toweling. "And even if I got it past him, sure as eggs some pen-pusher in HQ'd spot it and raise hell."

"I thought you were busy," I purr, my pulse quickening again as the thought crosses my mind – not for the first time – that I'm the luckiest girl in Starfleet.

"Managed to get the reports finished early. Had to make sure Mal here did his job properly." He leans over and kisses us both passionately.

"Not bragging or anything, mate, but I'm pretty sure I did," Malcolm drawls as his mouth is finally released. "Still, I'm sure Hoshi's up for an encore, and I dare say I'll find something to do."

=/\=

Much later, peace descends again over the now distinctly crowded bunk, though it's required a certain amount of maneuvering to get everybody reasonably comfortable.

"We can't stay here, Mal," says Trip sleepily. "Don't get yourself too cozy."

"Mf," is the slurred reply. Malcolm, it seems, is uninterested in the idea of returning to his own quarters anytime soon.

"So about shore leave." I'm deliciously sandwiched between them, and don't want them to leave either, but although my body is so sated that it feels as though my bones are made of warm toffee, I'm not ready to sleep just yet. I'm pressed up against Trip's chest, Malcolm's spooned up against my back with his upper arm wrapped around my ribcage, and this feels like a suitably private moment to discuss our real plans for the break back on Earth.

Trip makes some attempt to cover a cavernous yawn. "What 'bout it?"

"I'm sure you didn't tell us about that barn conversion at your parents' place just to make polite conversation," I say, digging him in the ribs.

From somewhere around the back of my neck come some muttered words of which I can only make out 'shagging party'.

"You two only want me for my body," he sniffs.

The reply to this definitely contains the word 'arse', and it might have been an insult or a compliment, but Malcolm only grumbles it into his small portion of pillow and refuses to repeat it. He obviously just wants to go to sleep, but I'm not ready to let him.

"You will come, won't you?" I demand, reaching back over my shoulder to gently tug a handful of disheveled dark hair.

"He will if I have anything to say about it," says Trip with a lascivious grin, the double meaning so open that I grin in return.

With us lying in such close proximity, Malcolm has pushed my hair up on the pillow to keep it out of his face. The small hairs on the back of my neck that are exposed by this are flattened by such a typhoon of an exasperated sigh that I half expect him to start hyperventilating from lack of oxygen.

He evidently gives up on the hope of catching a nap before he and Trip have to return to their own quarters, and leans up to drape himself across my side.

"Well, obviously I'm _keen_ on the idea," he says, running his hand idly along the smooth flank opposite us, "but I do wonder if you've really thought this through."

It's Trip's turn to be exasperated. "Jeez, Mal, do you always have to look on the downside of everything?"

Malcolm's lids have been sleepily lowered, but at this they flick up, and his voice sharpens a little. "Old habit. I go looking for trouble before it comes looking for me."

"What makes you think there'll be a problem?" I ask, brushing his hair up the wrong way so he looks like a hedgehog; I know this annoys him, and he catches my hand and bites it lightly before pressing a kiss on each of the knuckles.

He puts his head back down without answering. His expression is troubled, as though he's trying to think of a way to say what he means without giving offense.

Trip, however, is watching him closely, and the grin has turned wry. "I guess I know what you're thinkin'."

There's a measure of relief in Malcolm's face. "I think it's something that has to be addressed."

If there was room to do so, I suspect that Trip would have rolled on to his back. As it is, only his head can turn, and that with limited comfort, as he doesn't have much of the pillow either.

"Well, you're right." He stares up at the ceiling above the bunk. "If … Look, my folks are old-fashioned. Most of the people in that neck of the woods are, at heart. It's not that I …"

"Tell the truth and shame the Devil, mate."

The blue eyes come back to him, now also troubled. Trip takes a deep breath. "I think they could accept me an' Hoshi."

There's no sound, but for a second time I feel the brief quake of laughter in the body pressed against me. This time, however, it's not amused but bitter, and I know with pain that once again Malcolm feels rejection of what he is. My first, instinctive, angry protest – that I'd have thought people would have outgrown such antiquated attitudes centuries ago – has to be stifled. This kind of prejudice is too ancient to be uprooted readily, and Trip's instinctive loyalties to his family have to be taken into account. He's not responsible for their attitudes, and shouldn't be made to feel bad for not wanting to cause a rupture by revealing a relationship that would be such an anathema to them; even if in an ideal world he'd speak out bravely and not give a damn what anyone thought, we aren't living in an ideal world, and there are plenty of people who'd pay handsomely for such a scurrilous story about three of the 'heroes of the Expanse' being discovered in a sordid little threesome. Once that was out, the world's Press would have a field day with it.

The thought forces me to confront what would be felt by my own family if it should be discovered that I'm in a relationship with two bisexual senior officers at the same time. It's a prospect I've tried to avoid thinking of, but I can't avoid it now. My parents would be absolutely appalled; they'd think of me as a whore, and my entire family would disown me. As for my _jiichan_ , who was my emotional rock through a childhood warped by the early discovery of my linguistic talents, the shock of it would probably kill him outright.

"Well, that certainly killed the atmosphere," says Malcolm dryly, when the ensuing silence has gone on too long.

"I feel like a damned coward," Trip answers bitterly. "I know what I _oughta_ do. But they've … it's been real difficult for them. Especially with losin' Lizzie an' all. I know that sounds like an excuse, but…"

A finger comes to rest lightly on his lips. "Don't beat yourself up about it. Your family means a lot to you. I understand that. Actually, I envy it."

The words confirm something I've sometimes suspected, that his own family background isn't a happy one. Having monitored Captain Archer's conversation with the Reeds on the subject of Malcolm's favourite foods (being involved in the quest myself, I'd felt entitled to eavesdrop just for once), I can understand all too easily why he might feel the contrast with the demonstrative, affectionate Tucker clan Trip has talked about so often.

It explains a lot about his reserve, his isolation, and his reluctance to commit to any kind of involvement. Although even now he won't talk much about his family or his past, I know he thinks of the crew of _Enterprise_ as his real family, and in a sudden rush of jealousy I wrap my arm around his shoulders as best I can, trying to offer a little comfort. I hope he feels, as I do, that there's more to the relationship the three of us have than sex; hope he understands how vital a part of my life he has become.

I watch Trip reach over to gently cup his jaw with one hand. "I don't ever want to hurt you, Mal."

Malcolm accepts the kiss that follows, prolonged and tender, but his eyelashes are still lowered. So often he still retreats behind his barriers, and I wonder if he knows how obvious it is, to me at least.

"Look. We'll make this work. We _will_ make it work somehow. Even if … even if we have to do without any 'shaggin''." The chief engineer's attempt to mimic an upper-class British accent breaks the tension in an explosion of laughter. "'S long as we can just be together, the three of us. That's what matters most to me. Don't know about you guys."

A wicked smile curves Malcolm's mouth as he pretends to ponder. "Oh, I don't know, I'll have to think about that one. It was only the 'humpin'' I was coming along for." He's a much better mimic than Trip, and doesn't have much chance of dodging the playful whack that aims for his head and turns into a caress that once again ruffles his hair in all directions. "Bloody hell, what _is_ it with you two and my hair?"

"It's the contrast," I tease. "When I look across the Bridge at you sitting there all prim and proper, I love thinking about how you look after a night with us two."

"Absolutely knackered, for one thing," he groans. "Which reminds me, if I'm not going to be nodding off at Tactical tomorrow I'd better get back to my own bed. I'm not bloody getting any sleep here, all you two want to do is yap all night." He yelps as I reach down and squeeze unexpectedly. "You are joking, aren't you?"

"Just checking. I realize he's had a good workout."

"He's like me. Needs some R and R before he's raring to go again." With a moan of effort he peels his body away from me and sits up.

Unlike Trip's, his clothes are laid neatly across the back of a chair. He gets himself into them slowly, pausing every now and then to groan stuff like how he's not as young as he used to be. I hope he's not expecting sympathy, because he doesn't get any from either of us, who are both younger than he is and don't let him forget it.

When he's fully dressed and looks respectable again, he comes back across the room and kisses the both of us. "Don't forget and nod off in there, however tempting it is," he warns Trip sternly. "If the captain wants to know where you are in the morning, _I_ want to know which door to hammer on. And it'd better be yours."

Trip has rolled over on top of me. A hand waves him away. "Just 'cause you old folks aren't up for it any more…"

"I wouldn't worry, Malcolm. There'd be more life in one of last week's corn dogs."

"Hey! That's a real cuttin' thing to say about a man, Hoshi!"

"I'll leave you to the pleasures of attempting to raise the dead." He winks at me and walks to the door. Even now he never relaxes his wariness: he pulls a PADD from his pocket and checks that the corridor outside is empty before he presses the door release. Moments later, he's gone.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

_Tucker_

The silence after the door closes again isn't entirely comfortable. I roll off Hoshi almost at once; both of us know I was bluffing from the start. Though that quip about the corn dog was a bit below the belt, and I'll get her back for it eventually.

"Damn," I say at last, tiredly. "Maybe the shore leave thing wasn't such a good idea after all."

She snuggles up against me and I wrap my arms around her, trying to blot out the sudden chill I feel. "The idea was great, Trip," she tells me earnestly. "I don't want to give up on it. It's just that – we'll just have to be really careful if we go ahead with it."

"I don't know. Maybe I'm pushin' things too hard, too fast. Maybe we need a break from everything, even each other. An' even if we're careful, there's always a risk of some jackass gettin' hold of it and makin' something out of nothing. Mud sticks, Hoshi."

She raises herself up on one elbow to peer down at me in shock. "You think your family would talk? They've never seemed like those kind of people to me." I've never made any secret of how much I love them, and by the number of messages that come in for me in the mail bursts she must know they think the world of me too. How can I reconcile that with the sudden cold dread that's come over me that they could somehow betray me in spite of that?

"I don't know," I say miserably. "'Bout you and me, probably not. You bein' a beautiful woman, an' all. They'll understand that. But Mal, he … he's not a good mixer, Hoshi. You an' me, we know it's just 'cause of how shy he is, but they won't understand that. I'm scared they'll just see him as some snotty upper-class asshole who's tagged along where he's not welcome. And if they find out about him and me, they'll blame him for it. No matter what I say.

"And now _he_ thinks I'm ashamed of him. Of what we're doin'."

This feels like shaky ground, and I've put our feet on it. She pauses before she asks the question I pray she won't: "Are you?"

The pause is tiny, but it's still too long. "Trip!"

"I'm not! I'm not! Leastways…" I scrub my hand desperately through my hair. "I was raised that way too, Hoshi. The first time, back in the Academy, I … well, it was a bit of a … I don't know, maybe it was just nerves, but I made myself think it was because what we were doing was wrong. Like, God was tryin' to tell me something.

"We tried again, a couple more times, but it never worked out that well. So I guess I convinced myself I didn't 'go' for guys, not really, not the way it mattered. I even went to confession about it and promised not to 'sin' again. At the time it felt like a relief." The crack of my laughter sounds bitter, if not outright crazy. "Then I saw Mal."

"So you'd thought about him even before…"

"Once or twice. He's good-lookin', I noticed that straight away. But for a start off I never realized he was bi, and for another his damned prissy attitude got up my back from the start. That's how I know exactly how my folks'll see him. Just the way I did."

She looks down at the hairs on my chest and starts combing her fingers thoughtfully through them. "Do you feel ashamed when you're with Malcolm?"

"Hell, no. I won't say I don't still want to slap him into the middle of next week when he comes on all stiff-upper-lip at me, but now he's finally gotten round to lettin' on he's a real decent guy under all that armor-platin' I … well, I suppose I feel kinda honored, because I don't think he lets people get this close to him easily." This makes me feel even worse, because I know that however deftly Mal tried to pass it off, he was hurt by my reluctance to be open about being in a relationship with him. "As for the sex, if you haven't noticed I'm enjoyin' it then I think you'd better schedule an eye examination. Real soon."

"So are you still thinking we should cancel the idea of meeting up?"

I sigh. When the three of us are together everything is beautifully simple, but other times … I guess it's not that easy to shake off the values you were brought up in. It's not that I doubt what I feel for Malcolm (even though I'm not really sure what it is yet), more that the memories are sometimes too clear of sitting in the chapel listening to the preacher going on and on on the subject of 'dishonorable passions', even though I was too young at the time to have that much of an idea what he was talking about. Looking back, I've even wondered if the way he concentrated so much on the stuff condemning gays really wasn't saying as much about himself as it was about the way God supposedly feels, but the first time someone in a college debate came up with that idea I pretty well expected the ceiling to cave in.

But whether or not, I know now that if I call it off, Mal will believe it's because of him. Because I care more about what my folks will think than I do about him. And that's not true – at least, I don't want it to be true, and I won't let it be true – so hell, I'm not giving up on it at all. The three of us can just hang out together (I've never asked if he likes fishing, but I know he's got patience, so damn, I can always teach him if he wants me to), I can teach him about baseball and he can teach me about soccer and Hoshi can teach the both of us about that ancient Andorian literature stuff she's just started studying, and all my folks will see is three Starfleet officers who get along together. There's no harm in that, is there?

So I say that to Hoshi (or at least most of it), and she hugs me and says she's sure everything will be fine. And we both pretend there's not a shadow of anxiety on the horizon, and that neither of us has heard of Murphy's Law which states that 'Anything that _can_ go wrong, _will_ go wrong.'

We're Starfleet officers. We're professionals. We're friends.

We're lovers too, but nobody's going to find out about that.

Period.

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

_Reed_

Well, so here we are – the 'Florida Panhandle'. Home to the one and only Mistah Tuckah and his kith and kin, as well as part of a state that has rather fewer inhabitants than there were a couple of years ago.

A few minutes ago the small aircraft I've flown in on passed over the northernmost tip of the Trench, that water-filled wound in the world the Xindi were kind enough to bestow upon us. I have one of the window-seats, so had a grandstand view. I'd seen that ghastly devastation on our previous visit, before it filled up to its present level, but to judge by the gasps and groans from others, plenty of my fellow-passengers hadn't. No doubt in time the kindly hands of wind and weather will soften out the edges of the scar; I don't see any hope of being able to drain it and fill it in, but bridges will be built across it and vegetation will take hold, and those of us who lived through the attack and lost loved ones in it will die, and a couple of hundred years from now it will be just another monument to the stupidity of past ages. If the human race survives that long, that is. God knows we tried often enough to wipe ourselves out, and the last attempt damn near succeeded. I hope we've learned our lesson, but somehow I doubt it.

I spent the first week of my shore leave hiking on Terceira in the Azores – a pastime that quite admirably ironed out the cramps from living so long in the confines of a relatively tiny ship. Also it acclimatised me to a hot climate, so when the aircraft door opens on the baking tarmac of the Panama City Airport and the hot muggy air of Florida rushes into the contained environment it's not as much of a shock as it normally is.

Trip's waiting for me in the reception hall. He looks tanned and relaxed in a white jacket and long shorts, and has even selected a reasonably restrained shirt, presumably so I'll walk beside him as opposed to ten feet away pretending we're total strangers.

"Hey, Malcolm!" he says, clapping me on the shoulder. "Flight okay?"

"Fine." He rolls his eyes at that, so I clarify. "Hit a bit of turbulence at one point. Apart from that, it was quiet enough. Still feels a bit strange using a commercial airline instead of a shuttlepod."

"Gettin' institutionalized. Should get out more." He grins, and leads the way to the flitter park. One of the rewards pressed on us by a grateful Earth on our return from the Xindi hunt was a flitter each; unsurprisingly, his is scarlet. Considering that subtlety is to Trip what snowballs are to hell, I occasionally wonder what on earth attracts me to him, but as he turns around and smiles at me and the base of my stomach drops away I'm afraid I know. It's not just that he's incredibly good-looking and terrific in bed, but that he exudes this irresistible charm; and it's not just surface deep either. He really is just a really nice person, and in some inexplicable way he makes me feel whole when I'm around him. It's such an odd sensation for me that I haven't dared explore it in any detail; the bare idea that anyone could be becoming so important to me is frankly terrifying. I haven't said it to him yet, and maybe the opportunity will never present itself, but in the silence of my thoughts I've actually found myself using the 'L' word; and using it in a way that's quite different from what it meant in any of those other disastrous relationships which I tried so very hard to make work without committing to them anything of me that really mattered.

Among the other gifts he's brought me is comfort with my sexuality. When I'm with him, I don't have to be ashamed of what I am. True, it doesn't do anything to make certain memories significantly easier to live with, but those were part of the person I was then, and that person would never even have contemplated becoming as interdependent with not one but two other people as I am now. Occasionally I look back on that life of utter isolation and feel some nostalgia for the safety of it, but there's no doubt about it that my life is infinitely richer now, in friendship as well as in physical satisfaction.

We get into the flitter. Our arms brush as I settle into the front passenger seat, and the casual contact makes me shiver with longing. However, we've already acknowledged that places like these are far too well monitored to allow us even a moment of carelessness, and we do no more than glance at each other, he understanding quite well why I shift abruptly in my seat.

"We'll make chances somehow, Mal," he says, his voice quiet and fierce as he engages the drive.

"That's exactly what you're talking about. _Chances_ ," I reply, though my pulse has speeded up and my memory has chosen this moment to present me with certain scenes that make my loose-fitting cream trousers suddenly uncomfortably tight around the crotch area. "But I believe the phrase you should be using is _taking_ rather than _making._ "

"Sonofabitch!" He pulls up at the back of a queue for the exit, and his fingers drum irritably on the steering wheel. "Look. I've made the arrangements. There are two bedrooms in the new place. Hoshi'll have one. I was gonna give you the other one, but Mom thought that was …"

"…Inappropriate," I finish dryly. I'm getting the picture. These people have never even met me and they already think I'm a voracious sexual predator who'll brutally ravish a helpless junior officer if we're alone in the same building overnight. No doubt it's only the restraining presence of other male personnel that has prevented me from despoiling the entire female complement of _Enterprise_ since we launched.

(Well, for one embarrassing day that was probably true, but hopefully Starfleet hasn't made that particular episode public knowledge.)

Maybe it's because I'm English. You'd have thought that enough centuries have passed since the Boston Tea Party for memories to have faded, but I've found there are still isolated pockets where an English accent suggests some kind of deviant personality. It appears that the Tuckers live in one of them.

It's not an encouraging thought.

Still, I can't imagine that an intelligent, friendly bloke like Trip can have come from a bunch of inbred swamp-dwellers, so I resign myself to the fact that they're probably just trying to ease the path of true love for him and Hoshi. It would be far more convenient for romantic trysts if the happy couple were in a place by themselves, and presumably the rest of the family will put up with my presence indoors as long as I don't pee in the fireplace or try to enforce _droit de seigneur_ on the servants.

"It's not goddamn fair!" He simmers until we've hit the freeway, at which point his indignation spills over again. "Look, if you can't–"

"Trip." I've already faced this, and all that remains is to make him see sense. "If we got caught out there'd be hell to pay. You and Hoshi can enjoy yourselves and make it up to me when we get back to the ship." I glance across at him. "And before you say anything, yes, I'll be as envious as hell. Of both of you. But one thing I don't want to do is feature on your family tree as the axe that lopped one of the branches it still has left."

"It's not the same!" he bursts out.

"I know that, you fool." Hoshi and I will happily shag each other's brains out when he's not there, but we still miss him. Just as he and I miss her when she's too tired or too busy. The reality of life on board ship is that it's actually relatively rare that all three of us are available and inclined and energetic enough to meet up, so we make the most of it when it happens, but mostly there's only two of us sharing a bunk. We had to come to the agreement that this would happen without causing excessive heartache, and so far it's worked well enough. I don't say that I don't feel twinges of envy when I'm the one left out, but that's just the way it is, and so far caution has served us well. The next few nights will be happy for them, not so happy for me, but if that's what it takes for us all to walk away leaving Trip's family ties intact, that's a price I'm happy to pay. Perhaps it's my having the family from hell that makes me so much more aware of how lucky he is to have a family that loves and admires him so much, and so determined to make sure it continues that way.

"Hey, who're you callin' a fool?" He ruffles my hair (Hoshi has successfully transferred that little habit to him, much to my exasperation) and seems to forget about the whole thing. Instead he concentrates on pointing out local points of interest, and both of us carefully neglect to mention that not all that far ahead of us is the Trench. His little sister didn't move far from home, but unfortunately she moved just far enough. Maybe the old cinema exercised some kind of sentimental attraction – a fatal one, as it turned out. I suppose it could have been worse; a few miles north and west, and the attack would have taken out his parents' home instead. Naturally I don't say this. The topic still feels somewhat sensitive, and for all that I forgave his outburst at me on the subject of Lizzie's funeral long ago, I'm not anxious to provoke a repeat of it. Our relationship is still new enough for me to be very cautious of risky subjects.

The afternoon is hot, even by Florida standards, by the time we reach the Tucker ancestral home. It's quite a beautiful building, rather old but well maintained, and evidently someone in the household is fond of flowers. Tubs of them stand along the porch and more tumble from baskets along the veranda, and the lawns on either side of the front garden are lined with rose bushes. The property occupies its own fairly large area of land – at the back of it I can see what looks like the end of a stable-block, and at a guess there are other buildings further around out of sight. I know from odds and ends that Trip's let fall over the years that there's a shed somewhere that he used to tinker with machinery in when he was small; there's also a lake not too far away where an uncle kept the boat whose motor was the first he repaired – at the advanced age of eight. A child prodigy, was our Mistah Tuckah, and I'm more than glad that _Enterprise_ has the benefit of his talents – even if my enjoyment of some of them will have to wait for a few days longer.

It seems that someone has been on the lookout for our arrival, as a number of young people tumble out of the front door as the flitter pulls up. It's unsurprising that Trip is an object of adoration among the younger members of his family; for all his intelligence, he has what Maddie would call a young soul, and gets on well with people of all ages. I'm aware of four pairs of eyes studying me with wary interest as their owners cluster around us; the resemblance to Trip is traceable in all of them, so they're undoubtedly his nephews and niece. He's already told me that a couple of his siblings and relatives who live only a short distance away have come to visit, and his older sister lives with his parents, so it's going to be a full house. By all accounts, however, that's by no means a rare occurrence here, and the household is well geared up to cope.

They draw us into the house, where the adults are waiting. Obviously it's Trip's parents Charles and Ellen, as host and hostess, to whom I'm introduced first. The marks of what the family have been through are plain in their faces. Ellen's eyes are still bruised-looking, and there's a conscious defiance in the way she holds herself upright. Charles, however, seems bowed by the weight of his loss, and his eyes are sunken in a face that has fallen into lines of bitterness and anger.

Husband and wife greet me pleasantly enough, however, though I do detect an undercurrent of puzzlement that they're not quite deft enough to hide. I didn't visit when the ship was back at Earth after the Xindi attack; I felt as if it would be an intrusion. They obviously know Captain Archer, since they ask Trip quite soon how 'Jon' is these days, but I'm a stranger, and they don't quite understand why I'm here rather than back in England with my own family. I don't know how much they know about my situation (probably not a great deal, since it's not something I discuss even with Trip and Hoshi), so my best course is to be as unobtrusive as I possibly can. Fortunately this is something at which I've had a great deal of practice, and even now I fancy I'm pretty damn good at it.

Having exerted my best and softest charm, and succeeded in banishing a few of the lines of unease from the faces of the older members of the gathering, it's time for me to be introduced to the junior members of it, so to speak. Trip's four siblings all bear the Tucker stamp to various degrees, though their colouring varies; his hair is among the fairest of the family, though his older sister's hair is the fairest of the lot, possibly with the aid of a certain amount of peroxide. They're also a pleasant enough bunch, and seem to share his intelligence; one or two of them even seem to suspect me of being an ordinary human being, even if I was born on the wrong side of the Pond.

There are two cousins in residence, and one of them is friendly and forgettable. The second, however, is of a different calibre. At some point he might have shared the family good looks, but I've already learned from Trip that he's the black sheep of the flock. He experimented with drugs in the past and still drinks too heavily, and the consequent ruin of his face and figure is compounded by the slovenliness of his clothing and a marked absence of personal hygiene (both, in my lexicon at least, severely discourteous both to his hostess and to the occasion, though maybe that's just his usual mode of appearance and everyone else just takes it for granted). In this heat we're all feeling the effects of it, but the sweat stains under his armpits would be appropriate in someone coming out of a strenuous couple of hours in the gym rather than attending a social gathering. Far worse than either of these, however, is his smile. It's as real as a nine-pound note, and when as I politely shake hands he closes his left hand over mine to hold it in place a moment longer than necessary, I feel the instinctive urge to wipe my hand on my trouser leg when I get it back. Needless to say I refrain from doing so, but I trust my instincts, and even if Trip's brief résumé of his misdeeds hadn't been in the back of my mind, my distrust of this man would still have been instant and visceral.

"M' cousin Carl. Carl, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, weapons officer on _Enterprise_." Trip's voice is too carefully neutral, and it's significant that he's mentioned my connection with weapons. So far he's introduced me as the Chief Tactical Officer, which is my official title. My disquiet ratchets up another notch.

"I guess it felt real good killin' those damn Xindi, hey, Lieutenant?" Carl wheezes with a knowing leer, as though he imagines I keep trophy recordings of the weapons strikes to masturbate over.

"It 'felt good' to _defend my ship,_ " I answer levelly. "With regard to the Xindi, obviously I'd have preferred it if a peaceful solution could have been achieved. Since that wasn't possible, I did my job – nothing more."

"Damn good job too! Damn good! When that weapon exploded – WHAM!"

I wonder if he has any idea how sore a spot this is to me. It was not I who placed the charges that destroyed that cursed weapon, but the captain. Starfleet has made this known, undoubtedly with the aim of enhancing still more the aura of heroism that hangs around Captain Archer's already overburdened shoulders, but I can't help but feel that it reflects on me – that people will wonder why the commanding officer of Earth's flagship couldn't trust his weapons officer to do the job. In my darker moments I wonder it myself. The obvious answer is that by that time his quest had become so intensely personal that he wanted the satisfaction of planting the explosives with his own hands, and of course he wanted to ensure that Hoshi and Corporal Macintyre were escorted safely off the weapon before he blew it to hell; but still, it rankles just a little.

I nod, as curtly as courtesy allows, and turn the subject by remarking on the display of flowers on the veranda. Fortunately my mother was a keen gardener and I absorbed some of her knowledge – at least, enough to allow me to sustain a few minutes' polite conversation with Ellen Tucker, whose garden is her pride and joy. I flatter myself that I earn at least a few points thereby, and with this seal of matriarchal approval set upon me the rest of the clan allow themselves to relax. At least for the present I am showing no disposition to confiscate the contents of the tea-caddy or molest the women, and although my accent will probably be interpreted as upper-class I show no reluctance to mingle with my social inferiors. Dam' good of me, what?

My manners remain unruffled during the course of the meal that follows. It surprises nobody that pan-fried catfish should be one of the main courses, though even I am surprised by the size of the portion that Trip puts away. It's even more astonishing that he actually has space for a dessert afterwards (pecan pie of course, and 'no-one can make it like momma!') – I swear, that man must have a stomach like a shuttlepod hangar hidden somewhere inside him.

The guest's privilege of helping with the washing-up afterwards is negated by the fact that the Tuckers own a dishwasher the size of the Tactical Station, but I earn more points by helping to carry the dishes out and load it. Halfway through this operation I find the egregious Carl standing rather too close to me for comfort, and the situation isn't improved by the way his expression changes instantly to what he probably imagines is a friendly smile as soon as I look up. In actual fact I've seen friendlier smiles on a crocodile, but I can produce a pretty convincing smile myself when I have to, and this seems like as good a time as any to do so; though I waste no time in re-establishing a correct distance between us, and extricate myself from the kitchen as soon as I can.

"Got any plans for this evenin', son?" asks Charles Tucker II, when we're all finally established in comfort in the lounge. "Or will you be waitin' till Miss Sato flies in tomorrow?"

Trip and I are seated on the sofa. Though we're at a discreet distance from each other, his arm is resting along the back of it behind my head, as though placed there quite by accident. Even though we aren't touching, or even close to it, I have the suspicion that one person in particular sees this placement as significant. I deliberately refrain from glancing to assess whether I'm right; it will be far better if I act as though I haven't even noticed. I make a note to myself to warn Trip to take more care, though. If we're trying to avoid even the breath of suspicion we have to tread so carefully that we wouldn't so much as crush a snowflake, and those who are determined to find evidence will manufacture it out of nothing.

"Thought we'd pay a little visit downtown," he says cheerfully. "See if we can find somewhere we can have a dance. Once Hoshi gets here she'll make sure we toe the line, so we'll take our chances while we can."

Once again he's used that expression. I keep my face bland, but I want to dig him in the ribs by way of a warning.

"You may get lucky and find a girl for Malcolm here," his sister Catherine chimes in.

"You never know, hey, Malcolm?" He pushes his knuckles playfully against the side of my face. "Once they hear that English accent o' yours, you'll have 'em eatin' out of your hands."

"It's hardly likely." I try to look suitably bashful. "Besides, I don't suppose anybody will notice me when they've got you to look at."

There's instantly a chorus of disapproval of my excessive modesty, even if at heart they all probably agree with me. Actually I like these people more than I expected to, with one notable exception. Carl's just a little too hearty in his protestations that I underrate my own good looks, and the effusiveness in his voice makes my skin crawl. Fortunately, he's not the type to go clubbing, and we've already been informed he has a new movie downloaded he plans to spend the night watching. By the vast wink that accompanied this information I'll guess it's not the sort he'd offer to share with his mother, but maybe I'm just being cynical.

At any rate I'm relieved when the party eventually breaks up, and Trip escorts me to my room. Even there I'm careful to leave the door open, and we keep our conversation absolutely void of the slightest suggestion of impropriety. Trip's eyes send me messages concerning the bed that unfortunately I'll spend the visit alone in, but that's as far as it goes, and even there I frown him into caution.

The sooner Hoshi's here to divert attention away from me, the better.

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	5. Chapter 5

_Tucker_

The club's crowded and noisy. It's also as hot as hell, the air conditioning completely unable to cope with the heat produced by so many bodies, but heck, we're still having a great time.

I don't think I ever imagined that Mal can dance like this. He's still a little paranoid about letting anybody get the wrong idea about us (well, the right idea actually) so he and I can't smooch or anything, but he's making sure I get a fabulous view of him showing off.

There's an old track he picked up from somewhere that he plays sometimes back in his cabin, usually when he's feeling real horny. I don't know who wrote it or anything, but I recognize some of the lyrics now: he must have gotten the DJ to turn up some cover version or other. He doesn't look at me, but there was this wicked little grin on his face as he got up from the table, and now I know why – he's tormenting me, getting his own back for the number of times I'm going to make Hoshi squeal like a piggy. Heck, if I told anyone on _Enterprise_ they'd think I'd fallen asleep and dreamed it, but this is as real as it gets. Mister stick-up-the-rear Reed is bumping and grinding with the best of them, and the sight of his ass in those tight leather trousers makes me want so badly to put my hands all over it that I almost have to sit on them to keep them off him. The girls opposite him think it's for their benefit, but he's been careful to position himself directly opposite me, and now and again he rotates on the spot to show off more of his assets.

 _"If you're looking for your animal, hop in my cage…"_

The shirt he's wearing molds itself to his body, showing off the curves of muscle that I've kissed and caressed, and the rhythmic thrusting of his hips to the beat reminds me of how they feel when they're naked against mine. There isn't a man or a woman on the ship who'd recognize him now, sinuous and seductive and gleaming with sweat, and I reach out and grab a beer and toss half of it down my throat in the attempt to cool the raw lust that surges up in me.

Technically, we're on the pull. It won't come to anything because we wouldn't do that to Hoshi, but in the meantime there's no crime in pretending and we can still enjoy the thrill of the chase. Soon we get chatting to a couple of pretty girls – mine's called Sarah, his is Leanne, and if things were different I'm guessing the evening would end in a couple of hotel rooms and some hot action. For a few moments I allow myself to imagine one hotel room and some _really_ hot action, but the surge of guilt that follows this tells me my testosterone's gone way too far. Still, boys will be boys and men will be men, and our gorgeous girls seem to find us attractive. Makes a change from the luck we had on Risa, so maybe the contrast goes to my head a little.

The evening winds to an end. The music starts slowing down. The DJ puts on a few classics, and our girls seem to want to smooch.

Maybe it's the beer, and the heat. I don't think Hoshi will mind us having a few slow dances. I'll act like a Southern gentleman like I always do, and keep my hands off where they shouldn't go.

The floor fills up with couples. Sarah's taller than Hoshi and feels strange in my arms. Leanne and Malcolm are much of a height; his arms are around her, and I swallow jealousy. One of her hands slips down to stroke leather, and he doesn't move it, though he doesn't respond either.

The music changes. The new song must be another one of his favorites, because I see that immediate flicker of almost painful recognition cross his face as soon as the first beats of the shuffling rhythm pulse from the speakers. Next moment the lyrics start, and as I hear him start singing along at the full pitch of his lungs I know why he's doing it, with his eyes shut and his heart in every word:

 _"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone…"_

Hoshi, Hoshi, Hoshi. He's singing to her to call her home to us, and this is the wrong woman I'm holding. And though tomorrow afternoon she'll be with us and everyone will beam at me hugging and kissing her, he'll have to stand back with that awful little polite smile pasted on his face, making out that he's just happy two of his friends are having fun. And then later, when we _are_ having fun ('cause he'd kick both our asses if we didn't), he'll be lying there alone, thinking about us. Sure, there are ways and means, and I don't think for a minute that he'll just lie there suffering without doing anything about it, but cleaning his rifle isn't what we're about here.

I wish so much that it was him I was holding rather than Sarah, that his arms were around me rather than Leanne. Before the natural movement of the dance takes him out of my view I see him rest the side of his face against hers; she probably thinks he's singing to her, but I know that in his mind's eye he's seeing Hoshi. A minute or so later I catch another couple of lines, and the passion in them runs through me like an electric charge.

 _"I oughtta leave young thing alone_

 _But there's no sunshine when she's gone…"_

And that's when it hits me that I love him. God help me, I love Malcolm Reed, and I love Hoshi Sato as well – I just can't imagine being without them in my life. I am just so fucked up here, and there doesn't seem to be any way this is going to end good. Even if they feel the same about me, even if it works out between us, even if we survive our time in space, humanity hasn't gotten around to understanding that love isn't something you can put rules around, something that always works out the way it's supposed to. For all we pride ourselves that society's gotten over a load of its prejudices, I know that for the rest of our lives we're going to have to pretend and hide and lie about who we are and what we are, and that burden will eat away at the very heart of what we have.

If the idea of my being in love with another guy is more than my folks could bear, how the heck could I tell them that I share him with a woman? That I love both of them differently but just as much, that they're both a part of me? What would they make of that? That I know they share a bed when I'm not there and it doesn't bother me, that I'll make love to either of them or both of them and it feels so damned special I've never felt anything like it in my life before?

And what does he feel about me? I can see it in his face, hear it in his voice what he feels for Hoshi. There's some real feeling in the way he's belting out that song. I want to feel that he's singing it about both of us and for both of us, but for all that he's let me so far into his life he's still such a mystery to me in some ways. I don't know what he thinks about what we're doing. I can make some guesses, but bottom line that's all they are – guesses. Is it love for him? Does he _want_ it to be love for me?

And what about Hoshi? She's a little the easier of the two to read, I guess. I think she cares deeply about both of us; whether it's love is another thing. Maybe sometime over the next few days I'll find some way to clear things up a little. Because I need to know, I need to get a real good handle on whether this is something they feel the same way about as I do, or whether I'm on the fast track to getting my heart broken one way or another.

After another few dances, which I've moved through like I'm on auto-pilot I guess, the party's over. I think Sarah's expecting me to make a move on her, but I just give her a peck on the cheek and she shrugs; neither of us will lose any sleep over the other. Even now we have to be careful of people hitting on us because of the Expanse thing, but I don't think anyone's recognized us. Malcolm and I are just two among the scores of tired-out clubbers who spill out into the relatively cool air of the early hours, grateful for the fresher air to breathe.

Jeez, it's still humid though. My shirt's sticking to me, and after his little floor-show for my benefit Malcolm's hair is as wet as though he's been under a shower. Or making love with me and Hoshi for a couple of hours. I can smell his sweat and aftershave as we walk towards the flitter park, and I shove my hands into my pants pockets to keep myself from grabbing him.

The flitter park's a short distance away. The crowds disperse quickly, and soon we're pretty well alone. The sound of our feet is loud in the silence as we stroll down the street.

Then I notice the alley we're almost level with, and my hormones make a decision so fast I hardly know what I intend before I've pushed him in there.

Just a few kisses; something, _anything_. I shove him against a wall and pin him there, my hands all over him. He responds like the animal in that damn song, his tongue invading my mouth, his breathing fast and desperate. I'm so hard it hurts. I can't think of anything except the feeling of his body, and though all my upbringing screams at the idea of a quick fuck in an alley, I want to.

God, how much I want to.

It's dark and quiet, except for our panting breaths. I don't want to ask, I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything that will stop this.

High above us there's a single light in an apartment, which throws down just enough light to save our surroundings from being pitch dark. Just for a fraction of a second I see a pinpoint of it reflected in one of the wide gray eyes opposite mine, suddenly fixed over my shoulder. Then he pushes me away, gently but definitely, and maybe it's just as well one of us has gotten his brain into gear.

"Save it for Hoshi, Trip," he growls.

"Yeah. I – I'm sorry." I run my hands across my face and try to slow my pounding pulse.

"Don't be." He leads the way out of the alley and we go back to the flitter without saying anything else. I'm not sure whether he's mad at me or the situation or what, but he seems tense for some reason. Or maybe he's just tired. The adrenaline is starting to fade, and suddenly I'm yawning. I'll keep the top down for the drive home, so the air rush will keep me safely awake. I could do without having to go to church later in the morning, but my folks still go and I guess it won't kill me. Even if I'll probably be half-asleep in the pew after the couple of hours' sleep I'll be getting at this rate.

As for me and Malcolm – well, it'll wait, I guess. Seems like it'll have to.

At least till we get back to _Enterprise_.

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	6. Chapter 6

_Reed_

Traditionalists to the bone, the Tuckers are a churchgoing family. Next morning one and all rise, get themselves dressed up in their Sunday best and travel to the local chapel – an even older building than their own house, and one which boasts a surprisingly large congregation given that this area isn't particularly densely populated.

As a guest I could plead tiredness or something and be excused, but it seems ill-mannered, so even though I'm not a religious person I tag along. I remember enough to be reasonably sure I can make a decent fist of following the service. As for what God (if any such being exists) may make of my presence, well I suspect that by comparison with certain parts of my past such a harmless fiction will rank comparatively low among my sins. A little innocuous play-acting isn't going to add anything significant to the reasons I'm already bound for the hotter regions of Eternity.

We file into a vacant pew and settle down. Only hymn books are provided so I'll have to fumble along with the words of the service as best I can.

A door to one side of the apse opens and the vicar emerges. I give him only a cursory glance; my mind is preoccupied with what I sensed in that alley last night. It's undoubtedly not the sort of subject that should be occupying me in a House of God, but I've survived often enough due only to my instinct, and I know that somebody was there. Somebody saw us. Now I have to find out who it was, and whether either of us was recognized; and if we were, what they intend to do about it.

Maybe it was just someone who was sleeping off one too many, or checking out the dustbins. It could even have been a cat, because I didn't see anyone; I just got that cold clench in the gut I know all too well…

I didn't tell Trip. I don't want him worried unless it's absolutely necessary. I'll deal with this on my own. If I can.

I'm alerted by the faint stir of surprise around me as the vicar moves not to the altar but to the pulpit. It's enough to make me look at him again, and look properly. And this time I actually see him, and recognition almost jolts me backwards in the pew. It brings so many memories that I don't hear the words announcing that some temporary indisposition or other has overtaken Pastor someone-or-other, and he's been sent to stand in for the service. I get the sense of them, but I'm so stunned that I can only sit and stare at him, while time rolls back and I'm back in a very different place to this, with very different people.

We knew him only as Viper, and the name was more than appropriate. It was he who taught me some of the dirty tricks end of killing: specifically, the use of drugs – mostly various poisons. It wasn't knowledge that I needed to use often (poison's the weapon of a coward, I've always thought), but we had to know our stuff before we were allocated to our teams, and this was one of the angles where standard Starfleet training was unaccountably lacking. Therefore our delightful little sessions with Viper, and little furry things that squealed as they died.

(I remember growling once or twice at the noises. My conditioning was still too close, and I hadn't got used to controlling it. I got a few glances from my fellow students, but nobody laughed. Can't imagine why.)

If Viper has discovered God, I'll bet my bottom dollar it's a damned recent discovery. If I wasn't so shocked I'd probably guffaw at the sight of him standing there mouthing pious platitudes to the congregation, his face so bland that ice wouldn't melt in his mouth, let alone butter.

He doesn't look at me, of course. He doesn't show the slightest awareness of my existence. He wafts his way through the service as though he's been scattering benedictions broadcast for years, not fumbling once on the sonorous phrases, and finally hands out the sacrament with every evidence of solemnity. From the very start I'd never had the slightest intention of going up to receive it – even playacting has its limits, in my mind – but although I don't look at him either I can feel him up there on the altar laughing his head off behind that sanctimonious mask, and on behalf of these innocent people all around me I want to tear his fucking head off and throw it into the baptismal font.

I don't, of course. He's here for a reason, and I'm all but certain that the reason is me. It may, of course, be no more than a coincidence, but I've never been a believer in the long arm of coincidence being _that_ long.

The service winds to a close. Viper takes up station at the door to greet the congregation as they leave, and he gives me exactly the same saccharine smile that he's doled out to everyone who preceded me. I notice that he has a sticking plaster on the back of his wrist, and a mischievous part of me longs to snatch it off; it might raise a few eyebrows if our unsuspecting churchgoers discovered that their wonderful substitute pastor carries a small tattoo of a cobra. He got that done the day he retired from active service – field agents don't make a practice of having anything so readily identifiable on their bodies.

The sun's shining brightly as we all emerge with our freshly-burnished halos in place and either head for the cars or converge in little gossiping groups. The Tuckers are clearly an integral part of the community, and almost immediately are absorbed in a round of greetings and conversation. Trip, of course, is known to almost everyone. I have to be introduced as some kind of _rara avis_ in these parts, so I possess my soul in what patience I can while all these kindly strangers coo over me.

Finally I get my chance. I pluck at Trip's sleeve and ask in a whisper whether there's a loo in the church building: "I'm not sure whether I can wait till we get back…"

He chuckles and points me in the right direction. Fortunately I don't have to dissuade him from coming with me to make sure I can follow simple instructions; occasionally his faith in me is touching.

The church is cool as I slip back inside. It's also empty.

The toilets are next to the vestry. I take a last glance around and quietly step inside.

"You took your time." He's propped up against the far wall, his arms crossed. He hasn't bothered to remove his vestments, but he's certainly removed the rest of his pretence, and the contrast to his previous unctuous charm is strangely chilling.

"I didn't know there was a time limit." My reply is deliberately flippant, but I watch him carefully. He could have been sent to arrange an accident for me, and even now I probably wouldn't know it until after I was dead.

"You knew I wouldn't be here in this hick backwoods town for my fucking health."

"Nor mine, at a guess."

He shows his teeth. "We may be able to able to do a deal."

Instinctively I snap that I'm through doing 'deals' with the Section, but even before I'm finished he's shaking his head and laughing. "Jag, Jag, you really don't think you get away that easily. And you should be thankful the Section _does_ look after its own … I couldn't believe how stupid you were last night."

I stiffen, now seeing the glint of the trap whose jaws opened in the alley. "Get to the point."

"Oh, I am. Very quickly. Frankly we don't give a fuck if you rent your ass out to Tucker or any other redneck. But what you may not be aware of is that his cute little cousin works for Terra Prime, and last night you and lover-boy gave him a handle on two Starfleet officers. It's only a matter of time before he takes you down."

It takes me a couple of seconds to process this information. "It was _Carl_ watching us?" I ask incredulously.

"Yeah." Viper nods. "I've been down here watching him for a while. Keeping my hand in.

"He used to work undercover for the Feds. He's good. You have to dig fucking deep to get underneath that stupid beer-swilling slob front he keeps up. But it _is_ a front. He's in it up to his neck."

I stare at my reflection in the little mirror over the washbasin. I've gone a bit pale, but the effect passes quickly and I look composed enough. "So I'm surprised you haven't taken him out already."

"You shouldn't be. We don't squash the lemon till we've squeezed all the juice out of it."

The hateful pieces are starting to fall into place. "And you think I may be useful in the … squeezing process."

He smiles like the basking alligator we passed on one of the side roads driving in from the airport yesterday. "Oh, I think so. Because you and the Section have one interest very much in common.

"Protecting Starfleet. And if it makes you feel better about it … protecting Commander Charles Tucker."

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	7. Chapter 7

_Sato_

The warning lights have hardly switched off before I'm out of my seat on the plane.

I can't wait to see the boys again – _my_ boys, my Yin and Yang. I know it's not going to be easy keeping up the pretense that one of them means more to me than the other, when in all honesty I can't separate them in my thoughts, but that's the way it has to be. And I tell myself it's only for a week; after all; then we'll be back on _Enterprise_ , and I'm sure Trip and I can find ways to make up to Malcolm for what he's been missing.

They're in the reception hall (and on time to meet the plane, so I know which of them organized the schedule!) and Malcolm hangs back politely as I rush up to Trip and hug him. Only after that's been completed to our mutual satisfaction do I get a quick and dutiful peck on the cheek, and a civil enquiry after my grandfather's health.

My news on that score isn't particularly good, but then _jiichan_ 's health problems are mostly those caused by all the years he's seen, and the best the doctors can do is make them bearable. Still, he was glad to see me, and we sat and talked for an age about my life in space and all the things I've seen and done since I joined _Enterprise_ , and my little brother arrived with his wife from Hanjin (we hadn't met before) and we all ordered a carryout of _kamameshi_ and _umeboshi onigiri_ which I hadn't tasted for years. Chatting about all this takes up the time it takes us to get to the flitter park, and provides me cover in which I can study Trip's face and Malcolm's to find out the current state of play.

I can discount the 'Fine' for a start. Trip is chirpy enough, and proud to show off the place he grew up in (or what's left of it), but Malcolm is just a little too quiet and watches him too intensely when he thinks he's unobserved. When we get to Trip's parents' place I can almost feel Malcolm's tension intensify. He should be relaxed (insofar as he ever does relax), but instead I see him unobtrusively checking the place out, as though he's expecting an ambush.

They escort me to the room that's been set aside for me, and just for a few seconds we're assured of privacy. In that half-moment we can be natural, we're kissing and hugging each other, but even sooner than I'd expected Malcolm breaks away, glancing uneasily towards the window. The room's on the second story so no-one can look in (surely he knows that?), but even so there's something in his face that tells me he's half expecting to see a face there.

My first instinct is to call him on it, but I think better of it. As much as it hurts to keep even this niggle of worry from Trip, I know that Malcolm will find it tough to admit to whatever's bothering him, and it may be easier for him just to talk it over with one of us instead of both. That there _is_ something bothering him, I'm already sure. It only remains for me to winkle it out of him.

"Look, if you two lovebirds want time away by yourselves, I'll be fine hanging around here by myself for a few hours. I've got plenty of stuff to read."

"Sorry, I'm goin' to make you jealous for a few days, Mal." With a naughty grin Trip cuddles me close. There's a note of seriousness under the teasing, though; we both wish things could be different, and I put my hand out and touch Malcolm's shoulder. I try to pull him in again for a lingering kiss, but he's not having any of it.

"We've got to be careful," he says a little shortly. "You two are obviously going to want some time on your own, it'll look really strange if I tag along everywhere like a bloody lost poodle. Go for a picnic or something. Go down to the beach. Do the reunited lovers thing. We knew this was the way we'd have to play it."

"I'm sorry." Trip's genuinely contrite. "This is going to be a tough week for you."

An odd, wry little smile flickers around the Brit's mouth. A full smile from him is a rarity (though I'm happy to say that Trip and I see it oftener than most), but this hardly qualifies as even a quarter of one, and it's as bitter as lemons. "I expect to survive it somehow."

"We'll drive out together for some of the days. I'm sure we can find somewhere really quiet where we can relax. Maybe there's an island somewhere. We could hire a boat." I peek at both of them under my lashes, knowing full well they'll know what I mean.

"Tease." Just for a moment Malcolm's grin peeps through, but he shakes his head. "Too risky. Got to stay completely above board. Nothing to hide. _Nothing._ "

"Aw, we get the picture." Trip reaches out and ruffles his hair, which produces the predictable reaction; even when he's on holiday, the standards befitting an officer must be preserved.

"You and my bloody hair!" Crossly he moves to the vanity unit and restores order as best he can with his fingers. "Well, I'm going downstairs. I'm sure the two of you can unpack without my help."

His footsteps clatter down the wooden stairs and then there's the sound of the outside door opening and closing. Through the window we watch him cross the garden towards the house, the Tuckers' three Labradors frisking around him. Even now he walks almost like he's on parade, shoulders braced and head up. He hardly seems to notice the dogs, though I know he likes dogs a lot; more evidence, if I needed any, that something's worrying him. Maybe it's because they're too undisciplined, too friendly. I bet any dog Malcolm owned would be trained to obedience right from the start.

"Doberman," Trip whispers in my ear.

"What?" For a second it's freaky how closely his thoughts have mirrored mine.

"If Mal was a dog that's what he'd be. A Doberman. Well groomed, intelligent, good-lookin' and _bites_."

He has a point. Though personally I'd liken Malcolm more to an Akita, a breed bred for spirit, obedience, loyalty and bravery.

"So what dog do you think you'd be?" I turn around and slip my fingers up under his T-shirt to find that lovely fuzz of hair on his chest.

He pulls me away from the window so that he can unfasten my blouse. We can't linger together because that would be embarrassingly obvious, but I'm certainly not going to resist getting a little taster here and now, even if I am feeling a bit travel-crumpled and could handle a shower.

"Retriever. I'm real good at findin' things when I want to." A claim that he goes on to prove, even as I giggle at the aptness of it. Retrievers are friendly and bright and playful, and that description fits him to the ground. He's also exceptionally good at the retrieving end of things, and we're both breathing a bit heavily by the time we reluctantly separate. I really do have to shower and change. I couldn't think of turning up at the family table for a meal in the clothes I wore traveling from Japan.

"We'll hold dinner for you," he says blithely (though I'd feel more confident about believing him if he was the one doing the cooking). "Take your time."

I can't resist running my hand along his jaw just one more time. There's just a hint of stubble there, which feels weird and kind of sexy, and makes me think of how it'll feel against all the sensitive parts of my body. He really is amazingly good-looking. His blue eyes are smoldering with promises, and I can only hope he'll find some way to dispose of what's pushing very visibly at the front of his pants before his mother sees it. I'd offer to help him out with that, but I really don't want to start off my visit with the entire family thinking we're on honeymoon, so he'll have to sort the problem out for himself. Luckily his t-shirt's long and a bit baggy, so I pull it out of his waistband and stand back to check. Well, it probably wouldn't stand a really close look, but then I don't suppose his family are in the habit of staring at his groin to see if he's got a boner from kissing his girlfriend.

I already know that Malcolm has the loan of Trip's room in the main house, while Trip himself has the bedroom next to mine. I don't suppose anyone actually supposes he'll sleep in it, but it's kind of cute that they like to keep up the fiction. They're a really old-fashioned family in a lot of ways and I already think they're wonderful. They welcomed me like I was some relative they hadn't seen for years; as much as I regret the fact that we can't be honest about our unusual relationship, I know that it would be really difficult for the Tuckers to handle. So maybe it's for the best that we do keep it under wraps.

Trip leaves the room – not without an appreciative backward look as I slip out of my skirt and waggle my rear end provocatively in his direction – and I head for the ensuite. I don't know what the timetable is for dinner so I'll shower and dress as quickly as I can.

An Akita and a Golden Retriever. That makes me a dog handler I guess, and the aptness of that makes me giggle even more. I can definitely handle those particular dogs.

Except that I'm getting the feeling that one of them has a flea. My reflection in the mirror crosses its arms and scowls back at me. We don't like our boys bothered by pests. I'm the only one we want feasting on their delicious hides. But I'm sure – well, it's hard to be absolutely sure with Malcolm, but I'm _pretty_ sure – that my dark Akita has a problem.

And I'm going to find out what it is. The first minute I get the chance.

And then I'll squash it.

There Will Be No Mercy.

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	8. Chapter 8

_Tucker_

It's just weird how it all takes me back.

Not a lot has changed, at least on the surface; the house was far enough from the point of impact to avoid most of the environmental damage, and the trees around the place are green and faded, shimmering in the summer heat as we all make our way onto the veranda and the comfy seats there. A few garden chairs have been brought in to make up the numbers, so there's enough for everyone. Even the kids throw rugs and cushions on the decking and spread themselves out, just like the kids in the household always have done. Doesn't seem more than a few years since it was me down there.

I'm roped in to help pour out the lemonade into the glasses that have been cooling in the fridge. Each one's got a thin crust of sugar around the rim – Mom is definitely showing off to the visitors that she knows what's what. Condensation appears like magic on the side of the jugs as I take them out and put them on the big tray, and snip off a few sprigs of mint to go on top of the ice that's standing ready to drop in.

That was always Lizzie's job, putting the mint on top. That and the pumpkin pie. Decorating it with fancy pastry shapes. She did an amazing job with the one at the party to see me off when we launched; must have taken her hours. I hated having to cut it, I remember that, and she laughed at me. She was so pretty, that day, wearing a red dress that set off her lovely blonde hair.

I still can't believe she's gone. That we never even had a body to bury. It leaves something unfinished, something that maybe could have helped me cope a little better. There's no closure.

Malcolm understood about that. He tried to help me understand it too. Tried to say he was sorry I hadn't gotten to attend the service, and I tore a strip off him for his trouble.

It's not that I don't love being back here. This is my family home, my home town, even if some of it's gone for good into that goddamn hole in the Earth, and sometimes I can even sort of forget that she's not here, pretend she'll walk in the door any minute and be as pretty as ever. At least all the rest of my family survived. One of the guys I went to college with went surfing that day and saw the whole thing: watched that damn weapon burn up his parents' place and his wife and kid with it. He suffered major burns to most of his body and they said he was lucky to have survived.

I'm not sure I'd think I was lucky, if I was him.

I haven't gotten up the courage to get in touch with him yet, though we used to be real good buddies and I still heard from him now and then even after I joined Starfleet. How do you talk about something so monstrous?

Where do you even _start?_

A touch on my arm makes me jump. I realize I've been staring down at the sprig of mint in my fingers, twirling it back and forth while I just look at it without seeing anything.

Mom's changed, just a little. I suppose it's impossible that she could have lived through all that pain without being affected by it. Her hair's definitely grayer than it was; I was surprised at first that she didn't color it or anything, because she always cared about her appearance, but it didn't take long to realize she wears it like a scar, the scar of what she lost to the Xindi. Even now her eyes don't have the sparkle they used to, and there are lines of tiredness on her face; and when she's not thinking about it her mouth has a downward turn it never used to. But as soon as she realizes anyone might be looking she pulls herself up and pins that brave smile back on her face. She's the lynch pin of the family. As long as she's strong the rest of us will cope somehow.

That must be such a burden for her. Such an unfair burden, but she carries it anyway and doesn't complain. I can imagine her being in charge of a wagon train in the early frontier days, coping with what must have been a non-stop succession of problems and dangers and just marshaling everyone into good health and good order.

"Ice'll be meltin', Trip," she says gently.

The air conditioning's on of course, but she's right. I scoop ice into the jugs to fill them almost to the brim and then drop the mint sprigs into place.

Her arms go around me and we stand for a minute just hugging each other. She's so small, and feels frailer than I remember. She still smells of roses, though; it's her favorite perfume. Every evening she goes out to the rose bushes and cuts the spent flowers so she can put the petals out in bowls around the house. Lizzie bought her and Dad a big cut glass rose basket for their silver wedding anniversary; it was in the middle of the table at dinner, filled with pink roses…

"Just got to get on with life, Trip," she says at last, looking up at me and cupping my face in her hands. "Doesn't pay to bear grudges. Let the dead rest. At least thanks to you and Jonathan and the others, there won't be any more."

Dad bears a grudge, I know that. I see the lines of hatred dug into his face under the hair that's now completely white. It's like looking in a mirror and seeing myself as we set out in pursuit of the weapon. I was kind of surprised he still went to church, but maybe he and God have some kind of an understanding about the 'forgiveness' side of things.

It would have helped him, I think, if I'd been able to hand out some kind of punishment to the Xindi, if the ship had managed to retaliate for what had been done to us. (Maybe it would have helped me too, though even I got to understand by the end that there are good and bad Xindi too, just like humans. Degra was a decent guy and I wish he'd lived long enough to see he was right to trust us.) I don't think I've imagined it that Dad thinks I've somehow failed to avenge Lizzie, though; that _Enterprise_ had the chance and didn't take it. It's that kind of attitude that's fed into the terror organizations that have sprung up, especially since the attack; I can't blame people for being scared, I definitely can't blame them for being mad, but these organizations think all aliens are our enemies. Even someone as kind and decent as Phlox, who wouldn't step on a bug. And I can't help but realize that attitude's got to be pretty well the norm around here. It's hard to forgive and forget when there's a damn great crevasse cut from practically one end of the state to the other, and seven million people are dead.

Well. At least they can't have anything against the people I've brought with me – both safely human and non-controversial. It gives me a cold feeling down my back to think what might have been said if I'd brought T'Pol instead, though. I'm not even sure she'd have been safe, especially in public. It's too widely known that our Vulcan 'allies' weren't willing to lift a finger to help us when we were attacked, and memories around here are long. As unjust as it would be, seeing that we'd never have gotten through the mission without her help, I'm not sure that would be enough…

Without saying anything else, Mom releases me and goes to fetch a couple of bottles in case anyone fancies a mixer. I carefully arrange the jugs and glasses on the big, worn silver tray that's twice as old as I am, and carry them out to the veranda. It's a whole lot hotter out here of course, even though it's in the shade and the first hint of a breeze has started to get up. Everybody has found a chair and sunk into it, torpedoed by the size of the dinner. At a guess, most of us will be fast asleep within a few minutes; Uncle Ed's already there, regardless of our having visitors. But then us Tuckers were never very strong on standing on ceremony.

Malcolm's on a lounger. He looks very correct, very English, with his short-sleeved beige shirt and slacks and his legs crossed at the ankles. His eyelashes are low but he's not asleep. His hands are joined across his stomach and he's studying them, deep in thought.

Hoshi's on the sofa, and the seat beside her has been ostentatiously left for me. She looks summery and gorgeous in a long white dress with blue embroidery, and she's putting out all her charm to coax a smile out of Dad, sitting opposite her. Needless to say, she succeeds, and soon the two of them are talking about the collection of World War 2 memorabilia at the Military Museum over in Clay County. At least, he's talking and she's looking interested and asking questions to prove she's paying attention, so that's proof positive to him that they're having a conversation and that she's as bright as she's gorgeous. The overwhelming irony is that if he was having this conversation with Malcolm instead he'd be talking to someone who actually _is_ interested in military memorabilia, and who probably knows even more about it than he does, but who is now reduced to the status of an eavesdropper. Maybe that's why Mal's just staring at his hands – I'll guess he's halfway between annoyance and laughter that he's the armory officer and his host's talking military matters to the ship's comm officer. Dad sometimes works as a volunteer at the museum in busy parts of the year, so he knows his stuff. I'm not sure why he hasn't seen fit to invite Mal into the conversation; maybe he's not keen on the careful English formality that can so easily come across as a sense of superiority. I know darn well why Hoshi hasn't. The whole situation must be tickling her to death.

Making a mental note to slap her ass on our lover's behalf as soon as I get the chance, I hand around the drinks before I join her on the sofa.

The weight of the warmth of the summer afternoon bears down on all of us like a blanket. We're full, comfortable, contented; the temptation to doze is practically irresistible. The peace is barely disturbed by the background chirping of grasshoppers and the occasional whinny from the horses in the paddock.

Part way through an explanation of why the replica of a Boeing B-17 at the Wings Over Miami Air Museum has just finally lost its airworthiness certification, Dad finally succumbs to the inevitable. Malcolm opens one eye and glares at Hoshi, who giggles silently. I wrap my arm around her and give her a shake. "You're a naughty little girl and you do know I'll have to punish you for this," I whisper.

"I'm counting on it," she whispers back. "Just as long as you punish me for Mal as well."

Well, I think I can oblige there. At the thought of handing out some prolonged and appropriate punishment on behalf of both of us under that old-fashioned quilt on her bed upstairs, I suddenly find it necessary to cross my right leg high over my left; it doesn't make me any more comfortable, but there doesn't seem to be any cushion handy that I could use to cover up my embarrassment. Mom's in the chair next to us, and she may be dozing like pretty well everyone else but she has this disconcerting habit of waking up when it's least convenient, and the last thing I want to do is give her a bird's eye view of the fact that her li'l boy isn't so li'l any more. At least in certain places.

Malcolm undoubtedly gets the picture of what's going on. He opens his other eye and glares at me with both of them. 'Bastards,' he mouths.

I suppose it was too much to expect Mister Antsy to just relax and chill out for an hour or so, even with his belly full of good home cooking. He stands up and rolls his shoulders like he's going to work out, and jerks his head in the direction of the lake. "I'll just take a stroll," he says quietly. "I won't be long. An hour, max."

"Sure." I'm too warm and comfortable to move, and I tug Hoshi to snuggle up against me; after that long flight she probably needs a sleep, and she'll have jet lag to cope with. A little nap will do both of us good, and Mal's a grown man. As for able to look after himself, I don't know anyone better qualified.

He walks away, and I watch him for a minute or two, enjoying the way his glutes undulate.

Somewhat to my surprise, Carl stirs in the chair almost opposite. I'd thought he was fast asleep. "Too hot," he whines. "It'll be cooler down by the lake. Might see if your pal fancies some fishin'. Get the boat out."

"Boat was leakin' last time we tried to use it," I say sleepily. "And there won't be any fish bitin' in this heat." I'd recommend he tries fishing off the jetty instead, but it was starting to go rotten before I left; he'd probably go through any planks that are still on it by this time. As for recruiting Malcolm to making the other half of a fishing party, I'd bet my next year's pay there won't be any bites there either. I'd rated my own chances of it as fairly slim; a stranger's are downright nonexistent. Still, that's Malcolm's decision to make, not mine.

As Carl makes his way down the veranda steps – making a heck of a lot more noise about it than Malcolm did – Hoshi raises her head. I can't see much of her face and she doesn't say anything, but I get the feeling she's not that taken with Cousin Carl. Can't blame her for that, he's not my favorite person either, but you don't get to pick your family. I have too many memories of him picking on me when we were kids because he was bigger and older than me. Dumber, too, which didn't help. All in all, I wish he didn't live close enough to be invited to family gatherings.

Still, those days are long past.

What harm can the jackass do now?

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	9. Chapter 9

_Reed_

Right.

First law of battle tactics as approved by Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the pride of Starfleet: _Choose your ground._

Second law: _Draw out the enemy._

I struggle to remember where the old adage _When in doubt, empty the magazine_ comes in, but it sounds rather good advice right now. Unfortunately for me, the enemy is far better protected than he realizes, though I doubt if he has any idea whatsoever just how much danger he's in if he picks a fight with me.

I never met Lizzie Tucker. That seems hard to remember sometimes, because Trip talked about her so often and whenever he got a letter from her (which was every time we received a mail package) he'd always read it to me and the others in the Mess Hall. Maddie and I weren't so much close friends as allies in adversity, but it was plain that Trip and his 'baby sister' were extremely close when they grew up, even for members of a tightly-knit family. When she got her job with a prestigious architectural company he couldn't have been more thrilled if he'd earned it himself, saying he knew she was going to make a heck of a career there. He was so excited about it that Hoshi got the captain's permission to let him make a personal call back to Earth, even though as it wasn't during one of our regular comm slots it was, strictly speaking, against regulations (and everyone looked at me when that was mentioned, I can't imagine why). So I was appalled when she was killed in the Xindi attack, knowing the effect it would have on him.

Well, 'fools rush in', as they say, and I was no exception. I achieved nothing much with my clumsy attempt at consolation except getting my head bitten off for interfering, which was probably inevitable as I'm inept with emotional matters at the best of times. It seemed not only pointless but unforgivably intrusive after that to say that in my peculiar way I missed her as well. I'd hoped to meet her one day, because quite apart from being incredibly attractive she really did seem rather special. Not that I held out any real hopes on the romantic front, but … well, a chap can dream.

(Probably just as well it never came to anything, because the situation right now would be _unbelievably_ complicated.)

Lizzie Tucker is dead. She died for nothing, for a mistake, just a name among seven million others. And the family I've left behind in that house where she and Trip were born have suffered enough.

A fact which makes my job quite unnecessarily difficult.

=/\=

As lakes go it's pretty enough, not large and probably not extremely deep, though naturally the latter isn't something I'll be exploring in any detail (even if I weren't held back by my phobia of drowning, large bodies of water in this part of the world tend to accumulate alligators). Trees ring it, festooned with Spanish moss, providing welcome shade. Apart from the Tuckers' place, no other dwellings are visible in any direction; it's a peaceful place. Fifty metres or so away there's an old jetty with a dilapidated boat-house beyond it, mouldering gently into the landscape. For want of anything better to do, I stroll towards them, idly curious. Probably this was where that old motorboat that Trip repaired made its maiden voyage, but there are no boats here now, unless there's one behind the twin doors that hang drunkenly on broken, rusty hinges above what might once have been a slipway.

If there is, I'm not authorized to touch it. With a fleeting regret (after all, I remember having a great deal of fun sailing when I was young), I turn away and walk out along the planking of the jetty.

This is clearly unsafe, but in a sudden mood of rebellion I'm not that inclined to take heed. If events fall out as I expect them to, this rotten wood will be far more dangerous to the enemy than to me; he's taller than Trip, and bulkier. And if he should happen to lose his footing and split his head open on a plank as he falls, well, accidents happen. In such a happy eventuality, my hands – if not entirely my conscience – would be clean.

I reach the end and sit down cross-legged. The heat is really oppressive now, and clouds are starting to boil up. If I'm any judge, there will soon be a thunderstorm, which will at least bring temporary relief from the stale air under the high pressure.

I prayed, in the church.

I never pray; don't see the point. But when I came out from the exchange with Viper with a certain little package tucked carefully in the inside pocket of my jacket I somehow found myself kneeling in a pew in front of the altar, and something damnably close to blasphemy was going through my head: _Lord, let this cup pass from me…_

There was no answer, of course.

I so wanted this to be over. Wanted to be finished with the Section, wanted to be honest and honourable. Wanted to be someone who could deserve to be loved. Someone who wouldn't sicken decent people if they knew what he was.

They don't know, of course. They won't. I can't risk that.

And it's not over, for all my wishing. _If wishes were horses…_ 'You really don't think you get away that easily.'

I don't, of course. I never did. Every man has his price, and Trip's welfare is mine. With that at stake, I'm at the Section's disposal.

How Harris must be laughing at the irony.

=/\=

Either he despises me or he doesn't perceive the necessity to make his approach stealthy. I know he can move quietly when he chooses – very quietly. But he makes no effort to do so now. I hear his footsteps quite clearly.

He's not as stupid as I'd hoped. He picks his way delicately along the jetty, sticking to the parts where the metal supports are directly under the wood, and sits down alongside me, though carefully keeping a safe distance between us.

"Real close family, the Tuckers," he says without preamble. "Trip's ma and pa. My aunt and uncle. Think a lot of them."

He seems to think that this calls for a response. I don't provide him with one, forcing him to go on without any encouragement.

"Folks around here are real old-fashioned, you know," he pursues, when the silence has gone on too long. "See, these city ways, these _sinful_ ways, they don't like them round here. They don't understand, you know?"

I note that he says 'they' here, rather than 'we'. Evidently he's not including himself among the reactionaries. He's modern, 'with it', a product of the newest schools of thinking.

I catch the sideways glance, and the sly grin underneath it.

"Now Trippy-boy, he's a bit of a hero in these parts since y'all went off into the Expanse and beat up them Xindi. His whole family are real proud of him. Wouldn't want folks to suddenly find out he's … well, he's not what they think. Wouldn't want everyone talkin', gossipin' about him. 'Cause that 'd affect his whole family, an' personally, I think they've gone through enough lately."

I finally turn my head and look at him. I'm wearing my look of dawning horror. I do it very well, I'm told. People are quite taken in.

Guilty as hell, that's me.

"You wouldn't…"

Oh, of course he wouldn't _want_ to, he informs me soulfully. It would be his _duty._ Because it's not right for honest, decent people to be taken in, hero-worshipping a man who isn't at all what he makes himself out to be.

"It's harmless," I quaver, artfully injecting a note of scared defiance. "It's our business, nobody gets hurt. Nobody needs to know."

Carl looks genuinely shocked. "People have a _right_ to know when they're bein' deceived. Bein' _lied_ to. It ain't right to have them lookin' up to 'heroes' who're no better than whores." Then the spite erupts, like the spittle that sprays from his mouth with the words he can't wait to get said. "I saw you, Reed. You think you're so clever but I saw the pair of you, you temptin' him into sin in that club and him with his filthy hands all over you afterwards, and him your senior officer. You wait till that hits the headlines. You wait till I tell people what the 'heroes of the Expanse' get up to when they think nobody's lookin'. You wait till they find out how Starfleet officers earn their promotions. And that pretty gal of his won't have nowhere to hide her face when she finds out what the two of you really are."

He pauses to take a great gulp of breath, and a grin breaks out on his face that makes me want to rip up one of the rotten planks underneath us and drive the broken end of it between his teeth. "So I reckon I have you bang to rights, Mister Uppity English. Now if you want me to keep quiet 'bout what I know, it's just a question of me givin' you the orders and you takin' 'em. Just like any damned whore."

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	10. Chapter 10

_Sato_

The first whisper of rain on the veranda roof wakens me.

Everyone else sleeps on.

I run a swift head count. All the family are present. Even that horrible cousin of Trip's has come back, so presumably he decided not to try fishing after all. He's lying in his chair with a half-finished can of beer slipping out of one hand. His head's tipped back, his mouth's open and a line of dribble lies on his jaw and neck like the glistening trail of a snail. His breathing's loud, but at least he's not snoring. Yet.

Malcolm's lounger is still empty.

My chronometer says more than an hour has passed, and punctuality is one of Malcolm's obsessions. You'd think 'Thou shalt turn up at least five minutes early for Bridge Duty' was the Eleventh Commandment. Actually it probably _is_ , in his bible. I can't remember how many times he's given me The Look as I dash to my station with seconds to spare, and Travis hides a grin as he looks down at his helm controls. (T'Pol doesn't say anything, but I know she's just watching everything and probably thinking the Vulcan equivalent of 'Business as usual'.)

The bad feeling deepens. Well, yes, I know that we're on holiday, and 'An hour, max' doesn't mean here what it would aboard _Enterprise_. It's perfectly possible that Malcolm has just found a comfortable patch of shady grass and nodded off, and that I'm worrying over nothing. If that's the case it'll probably take a couple of minutes for the rain to work its way through whatever tree he's under and wake him up, and then he'll dash back to the house before his clothes get spoiled.

The rain gets heavier. In the distance I hear the first rumble of thunder, and already there are pushes of the fresher air from the advancing cold front.

No Malcolm.

Maybe he's hiding out somewhere till it passes over. Storms here are fierce, but they don't last long.

The anxiety in my chest makes me too desperate to wait. Gently I detach myself from Trip without waking him.

There are umbrellas in a stand in the hallway, but toting an umbrella in a thunderstorm isn't the best idea, even though there are plenty of trees about which would hopefully present a more attractive target for lightning. Luckily, the Tuckers have been decorating one of the bedrooms this week and off to one side of the veranda there's a neat pile of painting accoutrements waiting to be used again. Including a rolled-up tarpaulin.

I make the best use I can of the overhang of the eaves to get as far away from the veranda as I can before I unroll the tarp. To me the sound of it slithering open is deafening, but there's no sign of movement from the Tuckers.

The lake's no more than a stone's throw away. Part of the shoreline is clearly visible between the trees.

Wincing from the thought of what the soaking will do to my new sandals, I pull the tarpaulin over my head and scurry down the lawn. The cover saves me from the worst of the soaking, but I have to see where I'm going, and for all that I hold the edges of the plastic together as best I can, I can feel the hem of my dress starting to get heavy and slap wetly around my ankles. A voice inside me is scolding me for ruining my clothes when it's practically a certainty that I'll find our ultra-prepared Tactical Officer sitting snug and dry in some bolt-hole ready to laugh his socks off at me when I turn up panicking like a mommy who's mislaid her toddler, but another, louder voice is screaming _Hurry, hurry, hurry!_ And that's the one I heed as I run down the track towards the lake, choking down the urge to call out his name because that terrible feeling inside me says there won't be any reply…

I find myself running down the shoreline towards the water almost before I expect to, and the pain of the gravel spewing into my sandals makes me stagger. Nevertheless, my frantic scan of the edge of the lake shows me the jetty a little distance away, and sitting on the end of it a motionless sodden figure in beige clothes.

I'm so relieved I almost sob as I scramble back towards the grassy bank-top. He's alive, and that's all that matters. Something _is_ wrong, something's terribly wrong, but he's alive. Anything else, we can fix. I don't care what it takes. I love him and Trip, and I don't care who finds out about it. I just want him to be okay.

Still, it doesn't take an engineer to see that the jetty's in a dangerous condition; I'm surprised he's gone out on it at all, but maybe that's another of the pointers to how wrong things are with him. Nipping my lower lip between my teeth ( _Okasan_ always used to scold me for that, saying it would spoil my looks), I take off my sandals and shake the gravel out of them before I start walking carefully along the planks, keeping to the side where the wood looks just a little sounder and I can see the line of the metal rail underneath.

I'm pretty sure he knows I'm here, even though the sound of the wind in the trees and the rain hitting the lake is a wall of noise in my ears. As I get closer I see he's sitting cross-legged as though he's meditating, but I can't believe that a Tibetan monk could achieve such a trance that he wouldn't even know he was out in a thunderstorm. And Malcolm, as I have every reason to know, is no monk.

By now my dress is past saving anyway. With only a little grimace I sit down on the wet planking beside him and hurriedly throw the tarp over the both of us.

I want to open with some cheesy line about him developing pneumonia, but the truth is I know he probably won't do any such thing. It's more than likely he'll catch a cold and turn grouchy about his blocked nose, but that's about the worst we can expect. (If all I have to worry about is a blocked nose and a few sneezes, I can live with that; after all, a Malcolm feeling sorry for himself is a Malcolm more amenable to being tucked into his bunk and offered strenuous exercise to help him sweat the fever out.)

Basic Starfleet training tells us to establish our situation before we act, so it seems like a good idea to take a good long look at my companion before I say anything.

Well, he's wet. He could hardly be wetter if he'd been dunked in the lake and fished out of it again, but he seems utterly unaware of it. He doesn't even acknowledge my existence, just sits there staring blindly into the water, and his face is absolutely rigid as though he can see something horrible down there beyond the dimpled surface that he can't look away from.

"Malcolm, talk to me," I say gently.

For a couple of minutes he doesn't say anything. He hardly even seems to breathe. Finally, "It's over, Ensign."

Whatever I was expecting to hear, this wasn't it. I just sit there staring at him, while the water runs out of his hair and down his face, and he doesn't even blink it away.

This change – this sensation that someone took the real Malcolm Reed away and I'm talking to some awful stranger wearing his face – is so overwhelming that I simply can't process it. What the hell has happened over the past hour to the man who left the veranda?

"You can't do this," I say at last. Which is such a cliché, but it's all I can think. Dumb, too, because he can, and I know that, and he knows that, but I just don't want to admit it.

He turns his face towards me, and the look on it is one I've never seen before. Gone is the tenderness, the passion, the playfulness, the friendliness, the protectiveness, anything at all that I've ever seen there. In their place is a cold ruthlessness that doesn't give a damn how I feel. The face of an executioner stares back at me from the man with whom I was thinking of planning a future. "I made a mistake. I should never have let myself forget the rules … become involved. And now I'm setting matters right. It's over. It's as simple as that."

"' _Simple_ '?" At first all I can feel is pain, but at that word it's swallowed up in a volcanic rush of fury. "That's the best word you can find for it, is it, Malcolm? That's all we are to you … a _mistake?_ "

I want to believe that something – Regret? Remorse? – flickers behind the gray glass of his eyes; that for just the barest sliver of time, I recognize him again. But there's not even a hint of softening. He's as hard and implacable as a glacier as he turns away from me again. "I naturally regret any unhappiness this may cause you."

Bastard. He doesn't even have the decency to say it to my face! He stares at the other side of the lake, and speaks like he's dictating a letter to someone he's refusing to lend money to.

If I obeyed my first impulse I'd put both hands to his back and send him head-first into the water, hoping to hell he'd drown in it. That said, it'd be tough on the Tuckers, having that amount of pollution in their lake. As for any alligator he happened to encounter, well personally I'd feel sorry for the alligator which ate this poisonous little reptile. He'd give a saltwater crocodile the bellyache.

' _First_ impulses are usually the _wrong_ impulses.' A certain English guy of my acquaintance first taught me that expression when he was taking the senior officers through tactical drill aboard _Enterprise_. Not that shoving him into the lake head-first feels like a wrong impulse right now – in fact it feels like the best idea I've had in years – but I struggle to control my rage. Nothing about this is right. This is not Malcolm talking, and I won't damn well believe he could do this to us. Something's happened to him, something that (in his standard stubborn-assed way) he's just dealing with on his own. I don't, I _won't_ believe that he could just decide 'That's it, it's over.'

Well. I pause, revising that. Maybe he could, because he's a worry-wart and he's been scared from the start that it'd end in disaster. But end it like this, with this brutality, without giving a damn for either my pain or Trip's – no. Not in a million years. No.

No, Malcolm Reed. You can sit there doing your damned Terminator impersonation for all you're worth and I'm not buying it.

But on the other hand, if you think I have you'll forget about me. You'll think I'm off your case. And happy in that certainty, you'll think Trip and I are going to take solace in each other and just be sorry you're not at the other damned end of the planet. That will give you the free hand you evidently want, and you won't be worrying about us at all. With any luck, you'll forget about both of us completely.

You've done too good a job, my tactical friend, my cunning lover. I don't take anything at face value anymore – not even you.

The movement of his head as he turns it to look at me again is like watching one of the phase cannons rotate on its mounting. "You may as well go back to the house. I told you. It's over."

"Fine." I use his word deliberately as I backhand him across the face. The print of my fingers flames against his colorless skin. "Go to hell and be damned, you asshole. I'm just sorry we wasted our time on you."

He's really good at this. His eyes don't even flicker this time. But as he turns away again, I see the tiny betraying movement of a single muscle in his jaw.

He knows he's done it. He turns the movement into a spiteful little grin instead as he pantomimes rubbing his cheek. "Go fuck your other lover-boy instead. I'm sure you won't miss me for long. The two of you can have an entertaining time comparing notes on what a little shit I am."

"Wouldn't waste the paper on you."

Dragging the tarpaulin off him again, I spring to my feet. I don't have to pretend to be furious, I damn well _am_ furious – furious that yet again he can't trust us, that he can't confide in us, that he's trying to take something on all by himself instead of sharing the burden with the people who love him. But there again, I might as well be furious with him for having black hair, because this obsessive protectiveness is who he _is._ The person I'm _really_ furious with is whoever's got some kind of leverage on him and is using it to break us apart. And in view of the fact there's only one person that I know of who spoke to him in the short space of time when he apparently 'changed his mind', then I've definitely got my suspicions of who's to blame.

"Have a nice life, Malcolm," I spit. Then, before I can get too far into the swing of acting the betrayed lover, I turn and march back towards the house. I'll have to hope I can get upstairs and have a shower without anyone seeing me, there's no other way I can account for being soaked to the skin. I can say I spilled a glass of wine on myself or something, and had to change. My dress and sandals – ah, whatever. They'll dry out I guess. Right now I have much more urgent things on my mind than clothes.

Out-tactic'ing the best Tactical Officer in the Fleet. Yeah, Hoshi, you haven't set yourself much of a job there. But maybe Trip'll be able to help. Unlike _some_ people around here, I'm a believer in the old saying about a shared problem. And Trip didn't get where he is aboard _Enterprise_ by being dumb. Actually he's one of the smartest people I know, and he's going to get the works as soon as we're alone together – if not exactly the sort of works he'll probably be expecting.

So hang on to your illusions a while longer, Malcolm.

You don't get rid of us that easily.

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	11. Chapter 11

_Reed_

It's done.

I can't believe how much it hurts. I can't understand how I can feel this much pain and not keel over with cardiac arrest. I think I'll despise myself forever for how easily the words came to me, how casually brutal I sounded as I thrust the knife in and twisted it in the heart of someone I … care for.

…Love.

I wanted it to work; God only knows how much I wanted it to. But God and I were never on better than nodding terms with each other, and I sold my soul elsewhere long ago. I'm not Malcolm Reed, I'm Section Operative Jaguar, and I think of that man's soiled hands on Hoshi's flawless flesh and recoil as if from the blackest blasphemy.

I should never have even tried, never have deluded myself I could deserve her. Or Trip, indeed.

The past holds us all to ransom in the end. Thanks to mine, all I've done is inflict pain on them. They wasted their affection on a man who wasn't what they thought him, who couldn't maintain the fiction of his decency.

I lean forward on the jetty. Maybe that would be some expiation. My better half even believes I wouldn't struggle, though at a guess the reality is that I'd thrash about and screech like a teenage girl the instant my arse hit the water.

There again, maybe not. Knowing my luck, I'd hurl myself in and find the lake's silted up and I'm sitting in about three feet of mud and looking like a total prick. I could face death by drowning, but not that degree of anticlimax.

So.

At least Trip and Hoshi are out of it, and can keep at least some of their illusions about me. They'll rail against me, no doubt, and hurt for a while, but at least they don't have to know what a narrow escape they've had. My own pain I accept as payment due for my utter folly in that damned club; I knew Trip was finding it as hard to maintain the pretence of mere friendship as I was, and I couldn't resist the temptation to tease him a little. So much for my supposed good sense. Now we'll all pay the price for my stupidity.

As for how we'll cope back aboard _Enterprise_ , that remains to be seen. There's a good chance I won't even return to _Enterprise_ at all, depending on the outcome of my latest little service for the Section. If my cover's blown it'll be the end of my term on board ship. I shall quietly vanish, sinking back into the stinking swamp that was my life as a hired killer, a liar, and indeed – when necessary – a whore.

I shut my eyes, trying not to think about what I'm going to have to endure tonight. Time was when I could have done anything that was necessary without turning a hair, but I've changed, and only now when I'm on the brink of losing it all do I know how much; without intending to, and almost without knowing, I've changed more than I would have believed possible. To have to reverse all that – to have to crawl back into the slime from which I emerged, with the stench of my own corruption filling my nostrils…

Oddly, I find myself thinking of Pard. It's been a while since she crossed my thoughts, but now that the pain of her death has faded, the memory of her acceptance is a comfort of sorts. She wasn't the type to try to view things through a rosy filter; she knew as well as I did, in the dark hidden places of our souls, that most of the missions we carried out were dirty and many of the things we did were indefensible. Sometimes, afterwards, when we were alone, she'd angle her head towards me … just like _this…_ and I'd lick her gently, just alongside the eye, and then she'd lick my nose, and though everything was still just as shitty, we knew the two of us were in it together.

She died. A tiny, cowardly part of me was even selfishly glad she died before she could learn that I was leaving, but by far the greatest part was more stricken by her death than I could let myself admit. Even now I wish she was still out there somewhere. Hating me, perhaps, but alive and happy in our kick-ass team. I was proud to be in it, even though I finally realized it wasn't the life I wanted. That was waiting for me on board _Enterprise_.

I won't go back, even if the Section offers me the chance. You can't turn back the clock. There are plenty of assignments that call for an operative willing to work alone, and if this means I leave _Enterprise_ it won't matter to me where I go or what I do. Or, indeed, how long I live – an attitude that will probably have its uses for my old masters, who occasionally require missions carried out where the volunteer doesn't pack a return ticket in his hand-luggage.

"Come visit me tonight, Pard," I say aloud, and have to pause a moment to still the shameful quaver in my voice. "If you … if you're out there and you feel like it. I've got to …" Another breath. I put my hands to my face, so that my next words emerge muffled. "I've got to get through this. And I don't know how I'm going to do it."

I know, of course, roughly what's on the menu. Once he'd got started, Cousin Carl launched into a diatribe he must have been storing up for months, if not years; if he'd been able to control himself it would have been bad enough, but within minutes it deteriorated into a sick rant that left me wondering what the hell these people from Terra Prime would ever do if they actually got into power. Real power, I mean; not the temporary power he'll have over me tonight, though the thought of that is enough to make me shudder.

I managed to extrapolate enough from the tirade to know that he's taking it upon himself to exorcise me. I can guess what that means, and 'bell, book and candle' may be the start of it, but I'm pretty sure they won't be the end of it. When he got to the part about Captain Archer being the Antichrist it was all I could do not to laugh in his face, but the situation really wasn't all that amusing. People actually _believe_ this drivel. I'm pretty sure even Cousin Carl believes it, and if he does, that gives him justification for doing anything, absolutely anything, to 'protect humanity' from the evil machinations of Starfleet, whose ultimate purpose is the destruction of humanity itself.

Yes. Presumably we set it up with the Xindi to murder seven million people … though come to think of it, I'm sure we could have done a better job if we'd really set our minds to it. As destructive as the beam was, it missed the majority of the most densely populated areas in Florida, which suffered the worst of its onslaught. If it had gone through Miami's metropolitan area, for instance, that alone would have accounted for six million in itself. Bloody hell, we definitely got careless there.

I didn't bother pointing out any of these facts to Cousin Carl. I didn't bother saying anything at all. I've always found that the best way to get information is just to listen, and so I listened, concentrating hard on producing the appropriate facial expressions for the moment. If he'd known me in the slightest, or indeed had an iota of attention to spare from his insane flights of fancy, he'd probably have twigged within the first five minutes that I was playing him like a trout. As it was, he seemed to find my beautifully simulated expressions of guilt and horror no more than his due, and swallowed the performance hook, line and sinker.

It's vital that I don't allow myself to forget Viper's warning that he's an ex-Federal agent, and therefore not the complete fool he appears. He undoubtedly doesn't know about Section 31, much less that I'm an ex-operative myself, but he won't underestimate my capacity to behave in a way he'd genuinely perceive as underhanded in the effort to protect myself from my well-earned grisly fate. He'll check me for weapons before he starts. Presumably he'll also immobilise me in some way, and I rather doubt if he'll pin all his faith on a pentacle on the floor to do the job.

Honestly. If it wasn't so damned serious I could burst my guts laughing at the thought that I, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the Head of Security aboard Starfleet's flagship, am to be exorcised tonight. What my father would make of that I don't know. I suppose I should be grateful Trip will never find out, because I'd guarantee I'd never hear the end of it. God, it's enough to make even T'Pol guffaw.

Maybe the entire idea has me teetering towards hysteria, because I have the distinct feeling of a shoulder pressing against mine. How Pard would laugh, if she knew. Maybe thinking of that will help me get through tonight; maybe it's she who's helped me to see the funny side. I dare say I won't see it for long, but seeing it at all is something – something to hold through the fear and the darkness.

When I come back to myself the rain is ending. The clouds are breaking up. Off to my right, above the trees, I can actually glimpse a shard of blue sky, and it feels like hope. Hope that I may get through this with – _something_ of myself still intact, unviolated.

As for the other things I dreamed of, the dream is over. Hoshi and Trip have each other. That's enough, that's the way things should be. With luck, they won't miss me for long.

And me? I'll do what I always have done.

I'll manage.

Somehow.

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	12. Chapter 12

_Tucker_

It's been a good day.

We didn't get around to doing much, mainly because Hoshi was understandably tired from the flight from Japan. It'll probably take her a day or two to get over the jet-lag, so we'll take it easy. Tomorrow I'll drive the three of us down to one of the coastal marinas, hire a decent boat and take us out for the day – I asked Mal yesterday if he was okay with that, and he said he reckoned he could put up with it if he had to, which I'll take to be his British equivalent of enthusiasm. Hoshi can sunbathe and rest, and he if he doesn't fancy fishing (I'd imagine if he's afraid of drowning, scuba diving is out), he can just sit in the shade with a book and a few bottles of that disgusting warm beer he likes and make sarcastic comments, especially if I don't catch anything.

If I'd thought about it earlier I'd have rung Michael and hired _Sea Witch_ for the day, but he's usually booked up weeks in advance in the summer. The tourist trade is picking up again, and now we don't have to sit waiting for the next attack, I suppose it's human nature that people want to come look at the Trench. Me, I think they're damned vultures, but they're good for the economy, and the devastation from that blasted Xindi probe will affect the state for years.

Still, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to pick up a boat somewhere, I know a few guys around the smaller marinas who probably won't be as busy as Michael. I've come out in the cool of the evening to the out-house where the family's fishing gear's stored. It's been a couple of years since I touched any of my stuff, but hell, I'm sure I never left it in this mess. It's worse than those goddamn Christmas tree lights that wrap themselves in knots while they're put away in the garage.

Hoshi and Mom are talking in the kitchen, recipes and that. They'll probably be at it for hours, so I can spare the time to get everything ready.

I'm busy trying to disentangle a bunch of spinners without getting any of the hooks in my fingers when a movement across the yard catches my eye. I've moved to the window to get the best of the daylight, otherwise I wouldn't have seen Mal walking towards the stables.

Well, he can go where he likes, and I know of old that he's the kind of guy who likes nosing around the place. Not that it's likely he's checking the place out for threats (what danger could there be around here?), but I guess old habits die hard, and maybe he's bored or something. He was quiet all afternoon, but he's probably still tired from last night, and he didn't get a nice dry nap after lunch like most of us did. Went out walking and got himself caught in a thunderstorm instead and came back in looking like a drowned rat. Said he'd fallen asleep and by the time he realized, it was too late to get in out of it anyway. Mom fussed over him and said he'd catch his death, which was kind of comical, seeing him standing there being all embarrassed at dripping on the floorboards.

Damn. I get a hook in my thumb anyway, like I usually do when I don't concentrate properly. Lizzie says…

I stop my train of thought right there. Hard.

I can hear her voice now. I know exactly what she always used to say. _Serves you right, Trip, think of how the poor fish feels._

We used to argue about it, about how a fish's mouth is made of hard bony stuff. They eat _other_ fish, for God's sake.

She never would buy the idea.

I put the spinners down and suck my thumb till the bleeding stops, which is only a few minutes. Then I go and look for Malcolm, because I want to think of something other than Lizzie's voice, which that damned weapon silenced forever.

This turns out to be a mistake.

Somehow I hadn't allowed myself to remember that she had a horse. A pretty little girly palomino mare she called Sunshine. She didn't get to ride it much lately, but the folks kept it anyway for when she came home on holiday.

 _Ain't no Sunshine when she's gone.…_

If I'd thought about it at all I'd have imagined they'd have gotten rid of it. Sold it, given it away, shot it even. Dad's not usually sentimental about animals. He has a shotgun and a license, and does what needs to be done.

The sudden gloom inside the stable after the bright evening outside makes me blink for a moment. Then my eyes adjust, and I see what I don't expect to: Malcolm, standing beside the stall, and the horse inside it. The creamy mane and sweet pricked ears, and Mal's hand running steadily and gently down the broad forehead with the smudged star off-center.

He looks like he's a long, long way from here, and when he hears me – I make some kind of noise, I don't know what – he jumps like a scalded cat. Sunshine throws up her head in response, and backs away, snorting nervously. She's lost weight, I can see her ribs and pelvic bones too clearly. Most likely that's why she's in here instead of out in the paddock with the others: Dad's trying to feed her up, probably got her on some special diet. The feed bucket's full. She's not eating.

 _Ain't no Sunshine when she's gone…._

God, how I hate that song.

"Bloody hell, mate, you could blow a whistle or something instead of creeping up on me like that." Malcolm tries to make a joke of it, but he's as nervous as the horse. Then he recovers himself, and looks at me more closely. "Come on. Sit down."

There's a straw bale lying on the floor a bit away from the others, and he guides me to it and sits down with me. I say 'guides me', because by this time I can't see where I'm going.

When we heard about the attack, I was just swallowed up with rage. That's all I could feel, all I could _allow_ myself to feel. I wanted to find the people who'd killed my baby sister and vaporize them. All I wanted Malcolm to talk about was the weapons we'd use to take our revenge, and when he tried to talk about my loss instead I shut him up good and proper. Maybe that was the only way I could deal with it, the only refuge I had from realizing she was gone from my life for good. That she wasn't safe at home enjoying her career, designing wonderful buildings for people all over the world to live and work in, that she'd never meet some wonderful guy and get married and have kids, that she'd lost everything.

That she was _dead._ Incinerated, reduced to atoms. Somewhere out in that Trench is all that's left of her, maybe a few charred bones rotting in the mud. Chances are there's not even that much, and if there is we'll almost certainly never find anything. The recovery teams still get called sometimes, but they don't find much these days.

Now it feels like finally I can't hide from it anymore, and something inside me breaks open, unleashing grief I can't handle. The grief I've been keeping penned up for too long, because it was more than I could bear.

I'm holding on to him, my fingers gripping and twisting in his shirt, while I make noises into the side of his neck that hardly sound human. It feels like I'm crying from every pore of my body, because my baby sister was murdered and there's not a damn thing I can do to put the world right again, and her damned horse is pining for her and my dad's trying to keep it alive like she's going to come back for it one day.

She won't come back. She's never coming back, _ever_ ; she's dead.

She's dead.

Maybe everyone else has already gone through this. Maybe being on the mission, having some channel for my hate, enabled me to … well, put it off for a while. Delude myself I was coping.

In an ideal world, I'd have been able to share this with my family. We share everything, that the sort of family we are. As it was, I had other things to do, things that were important. Well, one thing really. Just one.

Revenge.

And that didn't work out either, not the way I wanted it to. My better side can admit that what we got was better than that: peace. We stopped the final attack not by destroying the weapon but by reaching out to the builders of it and convincing them they'd been had, that we were joint victims of those trans-dimensional bastards who designed the Spheres and created the Expanse. But that didn't appease the worse side of me, the side that still wanted to wreak some kind of retribution on the people who killed Lizzie. How many of _their_ home towns were destroyed, how many of _their_ families were slaughtered like goddamn cattle?

Not one.

Not. Fucking. One.

Jon says there'll be some kind of deal as regards compensation, some kind of acknowledgement from the Xindi of all the lives they shattered.

Like that's going to bring Lizzie back!

For a guy who's always treated emotional displays like they were the equivalent of gross indecency, Malcolm copes remarkably well. In that ideal world I mentioned I'd be able to share my sorrow with Mom even now, but at a guess her wounds have begun the first fragile steps towards healing. To burden her with this now would be to tear them open again, and it's probably just as well that the arms around me are Malcolm's. They hold me, and even rock me a little awkwardly, but they hold me tightly, and that's all I need right now. To my surprise, he doesn't even try to stop me, but lets me cry my cry out, even though his second shirt of the day's getting a soaking and normally I wouldn't want to even _imagine_ the hissy fit he'd throw over his front being covered in snot and drool.

"That's her horse," I hiccup, when I can talk again. "Lizzie's horse."

"Oh, bloody hell." He strokes my hair gently, consolingly. "I'm sorry, mate. I should never have come in here."

"No." I shake my head, feeling my forehead rub his collar bone. "You weren't to … And maybe it was time."

"'Better out than in', as the actress said to the bishop."

He's such an ass. I start giggling wetly, and punch him in the ribs – well, I sort of smack him with my closed fist, and since my fingers take the brunt of the impact and his side is solid muscle, that wasn't the best idea I ever had.

"Ouch," he says, all sassy and sarcastic. "Nice to see all my self-defence classes on board ship weren't entirely wasted."

I look up at him. I know my face is a mess, and I know he doesn't give a damn. "You're such an arrogant asshole, you know that?"

His eyebrows shoot upwards, and his face takes on this snooty expression, kind of like T'Pol being handed a plateful of offal. "Oh, well. That's the attitude one has to expect when one mingles with the Colonials, I suppose."

I'm not having that. I clamp my arms around his ribs and push – hard.

He was probably expecting it but pretends he wasn't. We both fall backwards off the straw bale and land on the floor, which he complains is filthy dirty and now his head hurts because he hit it on it, totally because of some prat with more energy than sense, who he won't name names but isn't a _million_ miles away…

We just lie there in the dusty straw and I listen to him bitching, just like we're back on board ship and he's bellyaching about the power I won't give him for the Armory. And as I watch him disgustedly picking stray bits of straw off his shirt, while steadfastly ignoring the great big god-awful wet patch where I cried all over him, I realize even more just how much I love him, and how empty my life would be without him.

And that I still don't dare ask what he feels about me.

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	13. Chapter 13

_Sato_

Oh, I thought tonight would never end.

Luckily the years I've spent aboard _Enterprise_ have given me a thorough grounding in patience. Space is a pretty big place, and any vessel that sets out to explore it – even one with a top speed of warp 5 – has to expect to go for long periods when nothing interesting at all happens. Naturally there are everyday duties that have to be performed, and I keep myself busy in between times with the linguistics database (my perpetual work-in-progress), but I'll admit – if only to myself – that there are days when even that palls, and I glance up around the Bridge at everyone else going through the routine motions of a day that's just like the day before and the one before that, and wish that the hours would pass a little faster.

(I don't know how Travis copes. I think if I had to sit there at the helm watching this endless stream of star streaks coming at us for hours on end, I'd be hypnotized to oblivion by the end of the first day. I said that to him once and he laughed and said it wasn't nearly that simple; stars are more than just streaks of light, and there's a lot more out there to think about than just not hitting one head-on. Uh, like they didn't tell us _that_ in our first year in the Academy. Honestly.)

We were the last to leave; it's not surprising that Ellen wants to make the most of the time with her spacefaring son while she still has him here, and it's clear how much tenderness and concern he feels towards her after what she's had to endure. But finally good-nights are said, and Trip and I walk out of the back door. The place is quiet, except for the incessant chirping of cicadas. Overhead the sky is clear and glittering with stars, though during the evening there's been the odd glimpse of a flash low down in the west, suggesting that somewhere over beyond the city, maybe Pensacola way, is getting a hammering. We're far enough away from Panama City itself for there to be little light pollution, which in olden days would have helped to conceal such a distant event, but this is the season for thunderstorms, though the relief they bring from the heat and humidity rarely lasts for long.

Now that the moment has almost come when we can be finally sure of privacy, I feel the long hours of enforced silence have brought me almost to the point of exploding. I suppose it's understandable that halfway down the lawn Trip stops to look upward – however many stars we've seen in our travels, these are still the stars of home and he hasn't seen them for a while – but it takes all my patience to stand and let him look his fill.

"How many times I'd stand here and look up there and want to be flyin' among them stars, explorin' strange new worlds," he murmurs at last. "How many kids have that kind of a dream and get to live it?"

I shift from foot to foot, and glance anxiously back towards the house. Someone may be watching us.

I don't say anything, but he catches the movement and starts walking again at once. "Sorry, Hoshi," he says contritely. "You've had a hell of a long day. I should have let you hit the sack earlier."

"I could have gone by myself if I'd wanted to. Like Malcolm did." My tone is a bit tart, which I regret, but anxiety's nagging at me harder than ever. "Trip, we've got to talk."

We let ourselves into the cottage. It's a real little home-from-home, with its own tiny, immaculate kitchen for privacy and an ensuite shower room with a blue slate floor. My suitcase is still by the door, where I left it after I'd taken out a change of clothes.

"Tomorrow," he says briskly, picking up the suitcase. "Tonight you need a rest."

"No, Trip – we need to talk _now!_ " I'm not falling for this masterful Southern the-man-knows-best thing, not tonight; as much as I love feeling pampered and protected, I'm a Starfleet officer and I know something's wrong.

Desperately wrong.

He looks at me, really _looks_ at me, for probably the first time. And sees I'm not kidding. He puts the suitcase down. "What's up, Hoshi?"

I glance at the door. My nerves have really gone to hell; I can't help wondering if there's someone behind it, listening.

There isn't any lock on it, only a bolt, set high up, presumably so that adults can prevent kids from wandering out. Luckily it's new, and the bolt part makes no sound as I slide it across. Trip watches this, wide-eyed; at a guess, he's wondering if I've watched a few too many horror movies and expect an axe-wielding maniac to burst in to slaughter both of us in our beds.

I drag him upstairs. He was probably looking forward to something like this happening sooner or later, but not quite under these circumstances.

Not the bedrooms; they might be bugged. Jeez, now I'm channeling Malcolm.

The ensuite. I pull him inside, shut the door and turn the shower on full. The splatter of hot water hitting slate is painfully loud in my ears. I wonder if I really _am_ going crazy.

Trip grabs hold of my arms. "Hoshi, what in hell's going on?"

"It's Malcolm." I've had all afternoon to marshal my thoughts and suddenly I realize how little there is that I can tell him, what flimsy evidence I have for what's admittedly not much more than a suspicion, for all that it feels to me like an absolute certainty.

His eyes widen in alarm. "What about him?"

"I spoke to him by the lake this afternoon. He told me it's over. He doesn't want to be with us anymore." As the shock registers on his face, I rush on, angry for the sudden pain I can see there: "Trip, he doesn't mean it. I know he doesn't. Something's wrong."

He turns away. "He never … I spoke to him this evenin'. He never said anything." We're standing beside the sink. He passes his hand across the sensor on the tap and starts washing his hands as though not even aware he's doing it, just as though he has to be doing _something._ He stares blindly down at the soapsuds. "Did you … were you arguin' or something? Maybe one of you made a mistake, said the wrong thing…"

"It wasn't like that. Trip, _listen_ to me, and help me think this through." I pull him away from the sink and down into a corner. "Your cousin, Carl, what do you know about him?"

Now he's hopelessly bewildered. "He's a jackass."

"No, _more_ than that." Honestly, I could shake him, except that it doesn't take a genius to know that coming back to his home where so much has happened and where people are still coming to terms with their loss is enough to throw anyone out of sync. He's just a bit stunned by it all still, I guess, and not thinking as clearly as he normally does. He's just a bit slow to catch on right now, is all. Once he gets my drift he'll be past me before I know he's caught up.

The dazed look gives way to concentration. He may not know where I'm coming from yet, but he knows I wouldn't be asking if it didn't matter. "Only child. His Dad left when he was about six or so, never heard from him again. Didn't do so well in school. Nearly got thrown out of college. Mom died last year – my Auntie Carol. Worked in some place over east – where the weapon hit. Lucky he wasn't there that day, he'd snuck away to some political meetin' or other. Into politics a lot. Don't know what party, never cared enough to ask." His gaze sharpens and come back to me. "You think any of this is something to do with _Malcolm?_ You're kiddin' me."

"I'm sure of it." I take hold of his hands urgently. "Malcolm was fine with both of us this morning. Then after lunch he went out for a walk down to the lake. Carl goes after him, and comes back alone. Then I go to look for him and he's completely changed, he's like someone's taken the real Malcolm away and left this … this stranger there. And he said he'd made a mistake getting involved and was putting it right – and that was _it._ No sorry, no regrets, nothing. Like he didn't give a damn about either of us."

Trip blinks doubtfully. He's so transparent; I can see all too clearly that he's afraid that only my account is right, and not the conclusions I've drawn. That Malcolm really does want out.

Well. I may not have the kind of laser sights that will allow me to see into Malcolm's very well-armored personal thoughts, but over the years of the voyage I've seen more than enough of his personal behavior to know that this is _not_ normal. He may be shy and he's often awkward, and he can be ruthless enough when he has to be, but cruel or unfeeling to anyone he's ever cared about … no. Never. And I don't, I won't, I _can't_ believe that he didn't care, that all of the hours he spent making me feel that Trip and I were the proton and neutron of his atoms were just an act. A _mistake._

He's not an orator. Anyone who wants fancy speeches from Malcolm Reed will wait a long time. He talks through his hands, those hands that are skilled and gentle; the hands that convey so much with a single slow caress.

"So what do we do now?" asks Trip. "And how the heck can Carl have anything to do with this?" He hesitates, and suddenly looks stormy. "Back in high school, he was a bully. Always pickin' on the little kids. And whenever he picked on someone, the first thing he called them was 'gay'."

There's a cold feeling in the base of my stomach. Sizewise, Carl would make three of Malcolm. And for some mysterious reason, many Americans seem to suspect that English men are latently homosexual; maybe it's some stupid, prejudicial racist stereotype that goes back to the War of Independence.

But is he enough of a homophobe to simply pick on a guest in his aunt's and uncle's house and threaten them without any evidence? And without evidence, wouldn't Malcolm knock him flat on his back and laugh at him? The size thing is not an issue.

"But how could he have any idea that Malcolm could be gay? After how Malcolm went on and on to both of us how careful we'd have to be, how important it was not to let anyone suspect, he'd never…" I trail off, watching Trip's eyes fill up with guilty horror. "Trip, you didn't…"

"It wasn't anything," he says, with a desperation that's utterly unconvincing. "We told you we went out to that dance last night, right? There were these girls, we danced with them… nothing happened, I swear–"

"I don't give a damn about any girls!" Honestly, what does he think I am? And what does he think I think _they_ are? They were single, good-looking guys at a dance, and therefore there would be girls; a few dances, maybe a little flirting, and that would be that. "I want to know what you did with Malcolm!"

He buries his head in his hands with a groan. "It was afterwards, on the way back to the flitter park. Just a kiss, one damn kiss in an alley. That was all. Nothing else. No big deal. He stopped me practically straight away–" His head jerks up. "Sonofabitch. He saw someone."

"He said that?"

"No. He just pushed me away suddenly and said 'Save it for Hoshi'."

"And that was all?"

"Absolutely. I swear."

"Right. And _you_ kissed _him._ " I'm not blaming him, and I'm certainly not shocked, I just want to get the facts absolutely clear.

Trip looks miserably guilty. "Hoshi, you didn't see him in that club. He was so damned hot."

Well, no, I didn't see him, but I rather wish I had. I can imagine Malcolm Reed giving into the temptation to be someone his strait-laced persona aboard _Enterprise_ never allows.

"So it _could_ have been Carl. But you don't know that for sure." I cross my legs, rest my elbows on my knees and press my fingertips to my temples. For some reason this always helps me concentrate. "Let's assume it was. Why wouldn't he confront you rather than Malcolm?"

"Probably because the scumbag knows I'd knock him straight on his good-for-nothing fat ass." His scowl is deeply worried.

"Whereas we know Malcolm wouldn't." Not because he couldn't; it's becoming horribly clear that Carl has threatened him with exposure of his and Trip's relationship, and that the first condition of silence is the end of it. Which, by extension, is the end of his relationship with me too.

Malcolm is being blackmailed, but can't admit that he is. This is the explanation that fits absolutely the cold blaze of his eyes as he rejected me. He was acting under coercion, hating it, hating himself most of all for bringing all of us into this danger.

"Trip, we've got to find him. Talk to him. Decide what we're going to do." I hesitate. "But if we decide to call Carl's bluff…."

"We may find he's not bluffin'." His eyes are hot but resolute. "So what. Serves me right for bein' a damn coward in the first place. Let's get this over with."

"No, wait. Let's think about this. It's not just you personally … it's Starfleet. You're Malcolm's senior officer and you're both heads of your departments. Both of you will end up on fraternization charges. Malcolm knows this, it's what he's been scared of all along. The end of your careers."

I could say _and mine too_ , because although as far as we know right now it's just the two of them who've come under suspicion, once secrets start unraveling they usually tend to keep going. I don't think anyone knows about us, but it would only take one whisper… There's no way I could stay on board _Enterprise_ if the scandal about all three of us broke, and it'd follow me from one end of the Fleet to the other. Officially, of course, I'd be the innocent party; as far as Starfleet regulations are concerned, this whole thing would boil down to two senior officers corrupting a junior. I could stand on top of the highest point of the Admiralty Building and scream that the whole thing was my fault, that I started it, that the whole thing was my idea; it wouldn't make one iota of difference. Even now there's this stupid, chauvinistic attitude among senior Starfleet officials that men are the only ones who should be held responsible for anything, and that women are just weak-willed, vacillating creatures who're led astray by those who should know better.

Blackmail of any variety is despicable. Ordinarily I'd be the last one to even consider giving into it. But perhaps … perhaps at least for a while we should pretend to give in. Step away from each other for a while. Because when I come to look at the brutal reality, I can't imagine Trip or Malcolm being happy anywhere else than aboard _Enterprise_ , for a few years yet at least. I could go back to teaching without much heart-searching (if any school would have me, after a scandal of those proportions), but they're a different matter. Does either of them really want to give up their career? Being convicted of fraternization might not mean they have to leave Starfleet, but it would be a serious black mark against each of them, one that would probably mean one or both would have to leave _Enterprise –_ as well as seriously affecting their future prospects of promotion. After all they've done to get where they are, do they really think openness about our relationship is worth the cost?

Sure, we'd be happy together, no question of that; we get along as well out of bed as in it, and in one way it'd be such a relief to be quit of the secrecy, to be able to be upfront about what we are and how we feel about each other. But living has to go on, and we'd be a national talking-point, if not a national scandal. Where would we live? How would we earn a living if the worst came to the worst and we were dismissed from Starfleet? If we had kids, how would they get along knowing their parents were 'different'? Other kids can be so cruel. I was singled out in class because of my linguistic abilities. I can only imagine what the jeers would be if the ammunition was so much worse.

Blackmail, however, rarely has one condition attached. I know there's been malicious speculation about unimaginable financial 'rewards' we received for our achievement with the Xindi and the suffering it cost us. For a lot of people it's been far too easy to dismiss Starfleet's denials. Sure, we were allowed to accept some carefully-vetted individual gifts from major companies, but there weren't nearly as many as rumor seems to think; most of the world's governments seemed happy to confine their gratitude to flowery speeches. As for the financial rewards, we got our back pay and the regulation compensation for missed holidays, and anyone who wants to consider those as unimaginable is welcome to – the taxman didn't seem to have any particular regard for our achievement and suffering when the figures went in.

Trouble is, if I'm any judge of character at all, Carl's the type of guy who'll very much prefer to believe that Starfleet's hiding the truth and the mission's made us all secret millionaires.

Clearly, the same questions have been going through Trip's mind. He's sat back again. I'm quite sure that if it was only he who'd be disgraced he'd go through with it regardless, but the mention of Malcolm's disgrace too gives him pause. And as for the other stuff, he may be drawing a Commander's pay check that puts a lowly Ensign's in the shade, but he's still a long way from being a millionaire.

"You're right. We need to talk to Malcolm," he says heavily. "If this really is what's happened, we need to talk through it and work out what we're goin' to do about it."

The spray from the shower has been hitting both of us while we talked; there's no shower enclosure, the whole floor area slopes gently towards the drain. I suppose whoever designed it never imagined anyone would need to use the place to hold a confidential conversation while the shower was running. At any rate, both of us are wet enough to cause comment if anyone happens to be up and about when we go back into the house, so we hurriedly dry off and change into fresh clothes. Maybe we could leave this till tomorrow, but I don't think either of us would get a lot of sleep with this hanging over our heads, and for sure Malcolm won't. So it's best to get it sorted right now, and then perhaps all of us can get some rest.

It was late when the party finally broke up, and when I glance out the window the house opposite's silent and dark. After being mostly silent all evening, Malcolm went to bed early, avoiding our eyes. The Tuckers were yawning their heads off by the time we left, and are probably in bed by now.

Who the heck else would still be around at this hour?

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	14. Chapter 14

_Reed_

Zero hour minus five.

I sit motionless on the bed – Trip's bed – and look at the clock. It shows the seconds, and they flow past endlessly, unstoppable.

His room is neater than I'd have expected. A few bits of college stuff around the walls, one or two of his old classic film posters (looking faded now, with their corners curling around the tin-tacks), and a shelf bearing odds and ends of the innards of some nameless piece of machinery. A bookshelf – surprise, it's stuffed with technical manuals; only on the very bottom do a couple of comic books fight for the small available space at the very end. Superman, at a guess. Subtext layered on subtext.

My unsteady chuckle sounds loud in the silence.

I'd be worried if I thought he'd chosen the décor. Ellen Tucker's hand lies over the chintz curtains and old-fashioned quilted counterpane, and the bedside lamp with the faded yellow roses on the shade.

I wonder if they've touched Lizzie's room yet. I can imagine it standing locked further down the landing, just the way she left it, a shrine to an unfading memory.

Zero hour minus four.

How often I've sat through this, in the shuttle usually. Then, as now, I'd look down to find my left foot's tapping on the floor. Sometimes I wouldn't even notice I was doing it, and someone would come out with the usual joke about Jag's tail twitching, and they'd all come out with various cat noises, just to piss me off.

Why didn't I tell Trip that it was over between us, like I told Hoshi earlier on? I meant to, but … Hell. I think the sight of his agony would have melted bloody Viper. I must be getting soft in my old age; I simply couldn't steel myself to do it, to add even more to his pain. There'll be time enough for him to find out what I am, and the thought of his face when he knows twists a blade in me that I can hardly bear. Maybe she's telling him even now, though he'll probably take some persuading. Better for him if he doesn't argue too long; best of all if they can just tumble into bed and forget in each other whatever hurt they feel on my account. I hope it's not much; I'm not worth it.

Good job I had a few minutes alone in the stable before Trip walked in. I was able to plant the stuff I'll need later. Now there's only one more thing I have to do in preparation, and I leave it till last because it's bloody dangerous, even though it's both simple and clever. I have to trust Viper that it contains what he said it does. Unfortunately my travel luggage didn't include a hand scanner, and that's not exactly the sort of thing you might happen on in a house like this if you just root through a few kitchen drawers.

I've only used this particular stuff once or twice, but I know how effective it is. And I don't want any accidents happening, because pity knows what would happen if it got shot into me rather than him.

The window's open. A small eddy of cooler air drifts into the room. I shift my shirt gratefully down off my shoulders to let the cool of it across the skin of my back; I'm already sweating, and not just because it's a hot night.

Zero hour minus three.

I can't wait any longer. I take out the package Viper handed to me and click open the small case it contains. Inside there's what looks like a dental plate. I take this out, handling it with extreme care, and insert it into my mouth. It fits over my front teeth, clipping around my canines; it's been made to fit and it does so perfectly, so thin in construction that unless you were very well acquainted with me and looking very carefully indeed, you'd never notice it was there. It's certainly well enough camouflaged to pass any but the most searching examination, and even if someone were to notice it they could well think it's an ordinary dental device.

With infinite care, using just the tips of my thumbs, I press upwards on the hidden clips, so that the hard upper surface of the long, sealed capsule inside the spring-mounted denture presses against my real teeth. I'm looking in the mirror, and the light that comes through the lamp with its faded yellow roses glints on the tips of four tiny hollow needles that descend from my supposed incisors. As soon as I exert any real pressure, the needles will pierce the capsule and the fluid inside will be forced down through them.

The device is armed and ready. Now the only thing I have to do is make sure that during whatever is to come I don't make the mistake of biting my own lip.

Zero hour minus two.

It will take me all of the remaining time to get out of the house without disturbing anyone. I turn away from the mirror. I don't want to stay there anyway.

I don't want to see who's looking back at me out of it.

=/\=

The house is mostly silent, though I hear voices in the lounge, Trip's among them; good – while he's busy with his family he won't even think about coming to look for me, who supposedly retired earlier, pleading tiredness. From long habit I've already established what path takes me down the stairs without producing a single betraying creak; fortunately the dogs sleep on the front porch, and I make my escape through the kitchen without them hearing me. I contrived an opportunity earlier on to introduce a smearing of butter into the lock mechanism on the back door, so it opens now without a sound. I'd have used the alternative exit method of the tree opposite Trip's window (I'm quite sure he used it regularly in his wild youth), but grim foreboding tells me that I may not be in any shape afterwards to re-enter by that route, at least not without difficulty and the risk of being heard. I have the reputation of the English to uphold, after all, and it will do it no good at all if the current representative is found scrambling around in a tree at whatever o'clock in the morning in a state of …. Well, whatever state I'll be in by the time Cousin Carl and I have finished our little tête à tête.

It's a beautiful night. The moon, three-quarters full, floats in an inky, cloudless sky. Seen from here, even now the stars are beautiful, even if they're less mysterious than they were. I could probably catch a glimpse of _Enterprise_ in orbit if the time was right and I knew where to look, but it's probably better that I don't.

I make my way quickly down to the stable. Now I'm launched, the tide of adrenaline flooding through me makes me eager to just get on with it. Once it's all happening I won't have time for regrets, or any thought but for how to get from one minute to the next.

The heavy door has to be lifted slightly so it doesn't drag across the cobbles. I sorted these hinges too. All the preparations have been made. Cousin Carl won't have any unforeseen arrivals turning up to spoil his fun.

… _Exorcised_ , for god's sake. Though maybe it's not as absurd as I'd like to think. The eyes that I saw in the mirror weren't those of Lieutenant Reed any more.

He's waiting for me, sitting on the straw bale. The light from a hurricane lantern hung on a hook glints on the blade of a Starfleet-issue utility knife that he's turning over and over in his fingers.

"Guess you didn't think I'd check, hey?" He chuckles. "You're a naughty boy, Loo-tenant. Shouldn't play around with knives, didn't your momma tell you that?"

I produce a crestfallen expression, and let my shoulders drop in despair.

"No, no, don't beat yourself up about it. You did a pretty good job hidin' it. Just your bad luck I know where to look." He points with the tip to a spot on the floor a couple of metres in front of him, and with dragging feet I move to where I'm wanted.

The contrast to what happened in this place earlier on is so unimaginable it feels like he's desecrating it just by being here. I want to tear him limb from limb. In my mind I create precisely the sequence in which I'd break every bone in his body. Instead of which, I just stand there meekly, the lamb in front of the slaughterer.

"'See you remembered your instructions, Loo-tenant. 'Bout what to wear." The same outfit I wore to the club; he hardly had to tell me. This is all taking on a dull, hideous inevitability.

Another point of the knife. "Don't think we need the shirt no more."

There's no need to feign the tremble of my fingers as I undo the buttons; they're shaking with rage. But my mind is cold, Jag-cold, and I know exactly how to slide the shirt off my body in such a way as to extend a subtle invitation to anyone who's looking for it. I whored for the Section and now I'm whoring for the man I love; it hardly seems to matter, as long as I'm for sale.

His gaze travels over me like a slug. "Trippy-boy do it to you often? Bet he's a horny little bastard when he gets goin'."

I lick my lips. He'll be expecting at least some attempt at defiance. "That's none of your business."

A grin. "It's my business if I say it's my business. Got to confess all your sins 'fore we can get around to the serious stuff." He goes on to inquire into the more detailed aspects of what 'Trippy-boy' does to me and I to him, and I continue to refuse to answer, all the while feeding him visual clues that he'll pick up without any effort at all. The utter fucking hypocrisy of the man is staggering; he sits there carrying out an inquisition into our 'sinful acts' for no other reason than voyeurism. And I've never had any doubt at all that at least some of these 'sinful acts' will form part of my penance for past misdeeds. He intends to get the maximum enjoyment from every second of my punishment, all the while congratulating himself that he's working on the side of the angels.

Oh, if only I could be lucky enough to have him start off with one particular 'sinful act' as a hors d'oeuvre. I press my teeth ever so lightly together, feeling the very tip of the needles grate on my lower incisors. Combining business _and_ pleasure. Pard would be so proud of me…

Unfortunately he seems to want to reserve that particular pleasure for later. He stands up and walks towards me, until he's so close we're almost touching. Then he runs his hands all over me, with as much pretence of respect as if I were a horse he was thinking of buying. Though at a guess he'd handle a stallion rather more tactfully than this, unless he wanted a swift hoof in the bollocks.

Through the white-hot haze of my fury I see his head angle. Presumably he's inviting me to nuzzle or lick him while he touches me. I'm a whore, so I have to act like a whore.

Obligingly I nuzzle. I even manufacture a couple of sounds of excitement, like the whore I am. I nip him once or twice, to get him used to my compliant arousal.

Then I bite.

"You little _bastard!_ "

I could dodge his slap but I don't. Nevertheless I don't have to take the full force of it; I'm already turning, so it doesn't land as hard as he intends it to. Even so it's enough to make me stagger.

His hands clamp around my wrists. He kicks at the backs of my knees.

"I gave you the chance to be nice, Loo-tenant," he breathes in my ear, forcing me towards the straw bale. "Now we can just do it the hard way. You lie down there and you don't move till I say move!"

I shake my head groggily as he pushes me down, spreading my arms so that my chest presses against the straw. There are things down beside the bale that he's brought along ready for the fun. I suppose there had to be a prayer book, but I have to admit I'm puzzled as to where a riding whip comes into the Rite of Exorcism. Still, that's one neglected area of my education I'll doubtless be brought up to speed with very shortly.

The drug will be coursing through his veins, spreading into his brain. As mad as he undoubtedly is, in ordinary circumstances a certain amount of the instinct for self-preservation would put a brake on his behaviour. Now, however, that brake will come off.

It's not a particularly fast-working drug. Though it starts to take effect immediately, especially in the presence of adrenaline, it takes time to take over the brain fully. His reasoning will break down gradually, and in about half an hour or so he'll talk. Quite readily. He'll answer anything he's asked. And I have a number of questions that the Section require answers to.

Until then, however, he'll be busy with me.

Ordinarily, even he would realise there's a limit to what you can do to even a devil in Starfleet uniform without uncomfortable questions being asked afterwards. Now, however, with the pain of those four little stings in his shoulder and the drug coursing through his blood, he clearly feels that the modest discipline of the riding whip will be nowhere near adequate for the occasion.

The Tuckers occasionally breed from their horses, and train the resulting youngsters. This involves the gentle use of a stock-whip to encourage the horse to keep moving on the lunge rein. The whip involved is coiled up and hanging on the wall, for use when required.

It seems that the requirement is 'now'.

Carl almost runs across the stable in his haste to snatch it off the hook. He picks up a length of rope, too, and I can guess why. He won't take any chances of my evading anything he chooses to do to me. Starting with the whip.

I was flogged once. Ten lashes. Towards the end, the pain of each blow was heart-stopping.

I very much doubt Carl will think that ten's nearly enough to teach me a lesson. My hand's shaking as I take the chance to snap out the dental plate and spit it into the straw, and then I snatch up the prayer book and stuff it between my teeth, thanking any available deity he didn't tie me first. I have to stop myself biting through my own tongue, have to stop myself from screaming with the pain. Have to endure this somehow.

 _Pard, help me now…_

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	15. Chapter 15

_Tucker_

After all the excitement of the day I'm still a little worried that going into the house may wake someone up, and the last thing we need is the conversation to start up again.

So the natural thing to me is to climb up the tree beside the house. It's right beside my room, and I can see the window's open, so I can get in no problem. Naturally I'll call out to Mal before I do, because I don't want to get the crap kicked out of me in my own bedroom if he wakes up and thinks I'm an intruder. Knowing him, he'd be all too likely to hit first and ask questions later when he's in a strange place.

Hoshi worries a bit, but even though she makes a fair point that I'm not twelve any more, I'm not exactly out of condition either. I went up and down this tree so often when I was young I'm just surprised there aren't handholds worn in the thing. Sure enough as soon as I start to climb I find the exact same hand- and foot-holds, and before you know I'm up on the branch opposite my window. The ground looks farther away than it used to and the branch seems to bend a little more, but apart from that I'm as safe as houses. There won't be any problem at all getting through the window when I need to.

I've brought up a few pebbles, just to toss on to the bed to wake Malcolm. The bed's directly opposite me and getting the range is no problem at all. Keeping myself steady with my left hand on the branch above, with my right I send the pebbles towards the bed, and in the silence of the night I hear the sound of them hitting quite distinctly.

Now I know Mal's a light sleeper. He might not feel the first and just maybe if he's tired enough he might ignore the second, but the third and fourth, no way.

I mutter something uncomplimentary and make my move to the window. Maybe he's sitting in the chair listening to music through his headphones or something. I'll have to take the chance.

Once again my body just seems to remember how to do it. It's not as easy as I seem to recall, and the window's definitely gotten smaller, but I don't fall, and in a second I drop to the floor of my room just the way I used to.

"Mal?"

There's no reply. The room's empty. His bed hasn't even been slept in, by the look of things.

His suitcase is still here. His clothes are on the back of the chair (neatly folded, of course). His chronometer's on the night stand.

Maybe he's just slipped out to the bathroom. I go to the door, open it and look cautiously out along the landing. There's no light anywhere, though presumably he might leave the bathroom light off so as not to disturb anyone if all he wanted was a quick piss.

There's no sign of his shoes, though. Would he put his shoes on to go to the bathroom?

There's a small, slim cardboard box on the dressing table, open. It contains a small plastic receptacle, also open, and empty. Nothing else.

Hoshi's worry has crept into me, and now it redoubles.

I don't want to raise the house. Somehow I get myself back out into the tree and scramble my way down to the foot of it, where she's waiting anxiously.

"He's not there," I pant, scrubbing bits from the tree bark off my hands. "His suitcase is, and the clothes he was wearin'. But his shoes are gone."

"He couldn't be anywhere else in the house?"

I shake my head. "Whole place is shut up and dark. I suppose he could be sittin' downstairs or something, but I don't see it. He'd be too scared someone 'd come down and get the fright of their lives findin' him when they weren't expectin' it." Desperately I look around the dark garden. It's never seemed so huge, so full of places a man could hide in if he didn't want to be found; or where he could be lying, if something had happened to him…

In his state of mind, if Hoshi's right, I can't say what he would or wouldn't do. There's the lake. There's the boat house, with its dusty old coils of rope, and the trees around it…

"Let's check the doors." Maybe he is inside, just sitting in the lounge and thinking. He used to do that a lot on board ship, just chilling in the Observation Lounge, and sometimes he wouldn't bother turning the lights on. After all, what's the chance of someone coming down and finding him at this hour?

The dogs on the front porch greet me sleepily, but they know me; they don't bark, and settle down again obediently.

The front door's locked tight. Not that we'd ever expect trouble, not round here, but it's sort of the family routine, shutting out the night and the things that prowl in it.

As quietly and quickly as we can, Hoshi and I flit around the side of the house. If the back door's locked, I know where the spare key's hidden.

There's someone in the chair beside the back door, though, and I draw in breath, relieved. He was just catching a bit of fresh air; probably couldn't sleep, like either of us.

But as I get up close, I see the build's all wrong, and when the voice comes, its accent isn't English. "Best you and Miss Sato get yourselves back to your beds, son."

I stutter to a halt. "D-Dad?"

He stands up, taking his time about it. "Everything's okay, Trip. Nothing you need to be concerned about. Just taking care of something, that's all."

His voice sounds utterly weird. Lifeless. Like he's trying so hard to hide something that he's hiding everything. I have no idea why he's here, or what he's talking about, but the fear inside me ratchets up again, and now it's pushing at the bottom of my throat.

Beside me, Hoshi's head turns suddenly as if she's heard something, and she gives a little gasp and clutches at my arm. I haven't heard a thing, but she's staring towards the stable, and even at this distance now I'm looking I can see the rim of light where one of the shutters isn't hanging properly. "Is there something wrong with one of the horses?" It's the only reason I can think of for a light to be on down there at this hour.

"Yes. Dancer's having problems. Thought I'd best get the vet in, make sure the foal's okay."

"So why aren't you down there with him?" Dancer's a valuable animal, a Tennessee. She's near the end of her pregnancy and it's her first foal; he brings her in and checks her over every night, to make sure she doesn't go into labor out in the paddock where the other mares might bother her. If he thinks there's something wrong he wouldn't hesitate to call the vet, but I can't imagine him waiting up here for the news.

He can't think of an answer fast enough.

"Trip!" Hoshi's voice is a breath of horror.

I'm going down there. I've seen a horse give birth before, and I know enough not to get in the way.

As I turn, Dad steps forward and grabs my arm. "Trip, I said leave it. Go back to your bed!"

Even as the habit of obedience drags at me, my arm twists hard, breaking his hold. "It's just a horse, isn't it?"

"No! Trip, no!" He scrambles after me, catching at my sleeve, his voice a desperate whisper. "Leave it, just leave them alone – think of Lizzie!"

 _"Lizzie?"_ I don't even try to keep my voice down, but the name stops me in my tracks. "What the hell's going on? Is it Sunshine? Has something happened to her?"

"Yes – yes, she had an accident! That's why the vet's here – she'll probably have to be put down–"

"And you couldn't even stay with her for that?" I might as well have added _Tell that to the marines_ , because Dad was raised on a farm; if he didn't feel able to put a suffering animal out of its misery himself, this is _Lizzie's_ horse. No way would he ever have left that animal alone to be shot by a stranger.

I pull my arm away again. I have Hoshi's wrist in my other hand, because she's trying to run forward and if there really is a horse being put out of its pain in there it's not going to be a pretty sight.

But as I try to move Dad literally grabs me and starts wrestling with me, like he's trying to throw me to the ground. He's not young, but when a man gets mad enough he can find strength he didn't know he had, and Dad hangs on to me like he'll hold me here if he has to kill me or himself to do it. "Leave it!" he spits. "Carl knows what he's doing – that little sonofabitch could have shot them all and he didn't – he's a fucking little coward and he deserves what's coming to him!"

Hoshi gives a soft little cry: _"Malcolm!"_

"You leave them be, Missy!" Dad hisses at her. "Isn't nobody else gonna care enough 'bout our Lizzie to do something to somebody. He could have shot them damned Xindi fine and easy, he had them big weapons an' everything, and he just let them get away without a scratch. Seven million people died, _seven million_ , and that little asshole never did a thing. Well he's got it comin' to him, and if my own son won't do it, his cousin will!"

I can't breathe, I can't talk. I can't get my brain around it. The only thing I know is that I've got to get to that stable, and as I finally break away from him and start running I pray, I pray like I've only ever prayed once before in my life.

The day we heard about the Xindi attack.

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	16. Chapter 16

_Sato_

 _"No, no, NO!"_

For my entire childhood, respect for my elders was drummed into me. My parents' word was law. Whatever I thought or felt, I was expected to bow my head and obey, believing that what they wanted was the best for me. Even when I was sent away to a special school so that my linguistic talents could be nurtured to the full, and I secretly wept my heart out at leaving my home and my family and all my friends, I went – if not happily – at least willingly. That was the duty a child owed to its seniors. No-one I knew thought or believed any different.

How the world has turned on its head, for now I'm fighting with a man old enough to be my father – even my grandfather! – as if the two of us were playground children, neither of whom will give ground. He's determined to follow Trip, to stop him and allow whatever horror is going on in that stable to continue, and as hard as I wrestle with him I'm slowly being forced backward. I'm screaming at him that he's wrong, that this is all wrong, that Malcolm wasn't to blame for any of it, that he's a good man and followed the captain's orders, and that I won't let him stop Trip no matter what. The instant he let go of Trip I swept his legs out from under him, I'm trying to hold him down but he pushes me away, and it's like trying to stop some terrible elemental force; he won't stop, even on hands and knees with me holding on to him he won't stop, and he keeps gasping out these terrible things about Starfleet and _Enterprise_ and Jon and Malcolm, how they're traitors and cowards and someone's going to get even, starting _now…._

"Charles Frederick Tucker the Second, you stop what you're doing _right this minute!"_

The voice isn't loud, but it cuts through his ranting like a cheese knife, so that he stops in mid-flow and just freezes, his eyes and mouth wide open. I wind myself around him tighter, finding that I'm sobbing with fear and rage; he's not getting away from me, he's not!

Ellen's come down from the house. She should look ridiculous with her dressing gown thrown on anyhow and a pair of slippers on her feet that are too big for them, but the shotgun in her hands makes her anything but laughable. It's pointing at her husband. And though the twin holes at the end of the muzzle are impenetrably black, I wouldn't bet a punched penny that it's not loaded.

Trip's reached the stable. He drags the door open. It must be poorly hung; the shriek of it across the cobbles splits the night.

A second shriek follows, wordless, incandescent with rage.

"Go down there, Hoshi, or there'll be a killin'. I'll take care o' things here."

I don't need telling twice. I almost push Trip's father away and I'm running almost before I'm back on my feet, steeling myself to cope somehow with whatever I'll find.

The first thing I see is a man's body – _Malcolm's_ body! – sprawled across a straw bale. Bleeding cuts criss-cross his back and shoulders and even his outspread arms; he lies limp, unmoving, and for an instant I think he's dead, but then I catch the whimper of indrawn breath and my own goes out of me in a rush of relief. He's alive, Malcolm's alive!

But Carl probably won't be for long, because Trip has him pressed up against the side of the stall opposite, with both hands around his throat.

I've seen Trip drunk and I've seen him sober, I've seen him playful and passionate, I've seen him laughing with Travis in the Mess Hall and working deep in concentration with his team in Main Engineering; I've seen him wide-eyed with wonder as we set foot on a new world, I've seen him mischievous and curious and flirty and even white with rage, but I've never seen him utterly determined to murder. I don't think he even feels Carl's fingers clawing at his strangling hands or notices the ineffectual kicks.

He's not going to respond to a voice. And he's not going to throw away his life and his career over this evil, twisted bastard, not if I can help it.

I snatch up an empty feed bucket and dart outside. There's a rainwater barrel just by the door and I scoop up whatever'll come in half a second and then rush back inside and hurl the lot over Trip and Carl.

That works. Trip falls backwards, coughing and spluttering; Carl falls to his hands and knees, crowing for breath.

"Damn it, leave him!" I smack my ship's Chief Engineer across the back of the shoulders with the bucket when he shows signs of wanting to wade in again; luckily it's only tough plastic, but it does the job, because he fends off another whack and glares at me. "Help me with Malcolm!"

"YOU! STAY!" he yells at his sniveling cousin. "OR I'LL FUCKIN' FINISH THE JOB NEXT TIME!"

His shouts upset the horses, which are already stamping and snorting restlessly in their stalls. There are two of them in here; at first I think there's only one, but in the darker stall beyond I see a chestnut head fling up, and the scared, rolling eye in it.

Not that I have time to worry about that, except to think that if they get scared enough they might break down the rather flimsy doors and try to escape, and that's something we definitely don't want happening. At least not till Malcolm's out of the way.

The two of us bend over our lover. At first I think he's unconscious, but one gray eye rolls open as I touch his face. His breathing is ragged, and his teeth are practically embedded in some small book with a black leather cover. I try to gently remove this, to make it easier for him to breathe, but he stops me with a hoarse, inarticulate noise.

"We shouldn't even try to move him," says Trip, his face bleached as he takes in the damage that's been inflicted on the bare flesh we know is so sensitive. "Go up to the house. Call 911."

 _"–No!"_ It's almost a muffled shriek, making us both jump. With what must be a superhuman effort Malcolm spits out the book. It drops into the straw and he swipes clumsily at it. The movement seems to take up an enormous amount of his strength, because his head droops, his eyes blinking frantically like he's fighting to stay awake. "No," he gasps out. "For Christ's sake. No."

"Malcolm, you're hurt! You need help!"

His laugh is like the grating of a saw. "Yes, Hoshi. I know. But not yet. I have to do something. Just help me."

 _Help_ him? We hardly dare touch him. There's nothing in the house that would be anything like up to treating these injuries. The blood's running across his skin where cut after cut has opened it, and god knows he could go into shock at any minute, if he hasn't already.

He knows we're hesitating. He drags his head up and looks at Trip, who's kneeling at his other side. "Sir – trust me. For the love of God – don't let me have gone through this – for nothing."

Gently Trip folds a hand over the fingers that are clenched into the side of the straw bale. "Okay, Malcolm. Tell us what you want us to do."

"Get these – bloody ropes off me. As for him–." His eyes cut towards Carl. "Keep him walking."

"With pleasure." It's a growl. Trip's fingers are now busy on the ropes that are cruelly tight around Malcolm's wrists, tying him to the bale; I'd help him, but the knots have been pulled so hard I've hardly pried the first of them open before he finishes the first and comes around to finish mine.

Malcolm swallows, and shakes his head slightly. "Don't hurt him."

"That's not so good. But if you say so…" The rope falls free, and he gets to his feet again. In the shadows behind him, a pitchfork is leaning in a corner.

Carl has started to recover. His face is now more flushed than purple, and he's stopped gasping and choking, though he's still lying in a heap wheezing for breath. His high color drains away as he sees Trip advancing on him with the pitchfork, and he starts scrambling away across the floor, alternately threatening and pleading for mercy.

"Get on your feet, you sick bastard," Trip hisses. "Up, or so help me I'll nail you to the floor with this!"

"You wouldn't dare use that thing on me!"

"Try this instead." There's a whip lying where it fell, on the floor beside me. The plaited leather cord gleams wetly in the lamplight. I pick it up, coil it and toss it to Trip, who catches the handle deftly and lets the lash snake out across the floor with a deftness that suggests hours as a boy spent learning how to knock tin cans off fence posts.

There's blood on my hands.

Malcolm's blood.

He throws the pitchfork away into an empty stall, to be lost among the heaped straw in the darkness inside. Carl's gaze follows it desperately, but the distance is too great, and he'd spend too much time groping around for the thing. Retribution would almost certainly be on him before he'd retrieved it.

"Now. I almost hope you don't believe I'd use _this_ on your good-for-nothing hide." A flick of the wrist makes the lash dance across the dusty, straw-strewn stone floor. "'Cause right now, nothing would give me greater pleasure than provin' you wrong."

"Trip, we – we're _fam'ly!_ You can't do this to me! Just 'cause of this chickenshit little Limey faggot – I only did it 'cause of–"

"Don't even say her goddamn name, you sonofabitch!" yells Trip. "You were told walk, you walk, and every time you stop I'll start you again with this!"

So Carl starts to walk, in circles around the stable, and I run up to the house and fetch clean water and tea-towels, and a tumbler so I can give Malcolm a little water if he asks for it. There's no sign of the Tuckers, and right now I can't spare the time to worry about them.

The situation hasn't changed much when I get back. Malcolm's still awake, but hasn't moved. Carl is still shuffling around the stable, with the menacing shadow of his cousin at his back.

I put the bowl of water down beside the straw bale, and use the tumbler to scoop a little out. Malcolm's lips look completely dry, and I'm pretty sure a few small sips of water can't do him any harm, just enough to wet his mouth.

He manages to swallow some, though most of it goes into the straw. "Thank you."

Him and his beautiful manners. I could smack him upside the head for wasting his strength thanking me at such a pass.

He turns his head to watch Carl. I guess it's not so surprising that his stare is like that of a wolf in a freezing winter, but what is surprising is that Carl seems to be drunk. Even the occasional prod of the whip doesn't seem to stop him wavering in his tracks, and he's started giggling over nothing. Surely he can't think anything about this is funny?

I'm pretty sure the cuts on Malcolm's back need to be cleaned. I'd give him tablets for the pain but that's maybe something the 911 people can help him with so much better if he doesn't have anything in him already, so I drop the tea-towels into the bowl. Okay, it's not sterile, but it's better than nothing, and pity knows what germs were on that whip cord. At least I can make a start.

I pick out one of the towels and wring out the worst of the water before showing it to him. "Can you stand it if I start cleaning you up?"

He nods. "Though I'd rather you – weren't _very_ rough."

"I'll try to remember." Folding it into a pad so I can be absolutely sure how much pressure I'm putting onto any part of his flesh, I begin dabbing gently at the shallower wounds. The deeper ones will have bled more, helping to clean out the bacteria, but these contain flecks of dirt and dust. I use only the lightest of touches, so that the grime will come away on the toweling rather than be pushed into the open wound, and change the working surface constantly so that I keep it as clean as possible. I try not to see how the muscles of his abused shoulders jerk with the pain.

His skin's beginning to feel hot, and when I turn to check on him his pupils look dilated, but he's still perfectly lucid, still watching Carl.

I have no idea what's going on, and neither does Trip, I can tell that by the anxious glances he throws over his shoulder every now and then, but I guess both of us are just trusting that sooner or later we'll find out. In the meantime, Carl's now reeling like he's had a skinful.

"Stand up straight, asshole!"

"No. Wait. Bring him over here. Make him lie down. Here. In front of me."

Malcolm hasn't got the breath or the strength for explanations, even if he wanted to give them. Trip looks at him doubtfully, but herds his prisoner over.

It hardly takes an order to get Carl to lie down. He keels over like it's been all he can do to stay on two legs, but he doesn't seem to be ill, and he doesn't even say anything. He has this stupid great grin all over his face, and rolls over looking up at the three of us like we're the funniest thing he's seen in a long time.

"Right. The harness-rail. Over there. Someone's jacket … some things in the pocket. Bring them to me."

I'm the obvious one to get it; whatever's up with Carl, he definitely can't be left unsupervised with the man he damn near whipped to death, and he's going to be a heck of a lot more cautious of Trip than me.

It's just an old jacket, probably been hanging here for months. I feel in the right pocket and find nothing, but when I dip my fingers into the left one some things that are cold and metallic move under my touch.

I'm the comm officer. I know a transceiver when I see one, though I don't recognize the design.

There's a hypospray too. I bring them back and hand them to Malcolm. Surely the hypospray's a painkiller? Surely he'll order me to use it on him?

He drops his head momentarily as though gathering his strength, and then lifts it again. "Now get out. Both of you."

We protest in unison, but he stares us down. "I wouldn't ask you if – wasn't necessary. Trust me. Go up to the house, give me ten minutes and then – call who you like."

"We'll have to get the cops involved." Although Trip's voice is grimly resolute, I can see the pain in his eyes. "No way can we keep this quiet, even if we wanted to."

"Do what you need to. Just trust me. Please. And – don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Yeah, Malcolm. Sure. We know. You and your 'fine'.

Reluctantly, we start backing towards the door. Neither Carl nor Malcolm moves. The horses have quieted down, and it feels somehow completely wrong that the world outside should be absolutely tranquil.

We shut the door, and begin walking heavily up the lawn. In the house in front of us a single lamp is burning.

And we still haven't a clue what's going on. Or what the heck we're going to find there.

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	17. Chapter 17

_Reed_

Right.

That … that was the hard part. This is … the easy part.

Or it would be, if my brain didn't feel like bloody scrambled eggs and my back hadn't been coated with plasma coolant and set on fire.

… I hope I've got the timing right. If this bastard gets up again I'm finished.

But there again if I get up he's finished, so maybe it'll be for the best if both of us just lie here like stranded fish.

… Fucking hell, Reed, you can't faint now. Pull yourself together…

Breathe

Breathe

Fucking/hell/it/hurts/it/hurts/jesus/christ…..

The transceiver. Nearly dropped it. ….Mustn't do that. Never reach far enough to pick it up again.

Breathe

Button/doesn't/work fucking/hell fucking/stupid/button/fucking/Section/fucking/useless/bastard/thing

Pressing/wrong/button fucking/stupid/wanker/concentrate/for/gods/sake

It's working.

Right, you bastard.

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Seven questions. I know there were seven. Fucking/hell/i/can/only/remember/six

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Anyway. Start with number one…Or is it number one that I've forgotten?

Breathe

Maybe I'll remember once I get started.

Breathe

Breathe

God/Hoshi/i/could/do/with/a/drink

Breathe.

Brace my hands. Got to lift my weight a bit, need to see him better, got to be able to reach him to get this stuff into him… Want to watch him spilling the goods, selling his fucking Terra Prime mates down the line. When we know who they are, we can do the rest.

Not/we/o/christ/i/didn't/say/we

OH/…..

 _Fuck/Fuck/Fuck/Fuck_

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

 _*Hssssss*_

 _N_ ow/talk/you/bastard

 _First question…_

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	18. Chapter 18

_Tucker_

I put my hand on the back door handle, and for a moment I can't find the will to push it.

I thought losing Lizzie was bad enough. Now everything else is crumbling around me, and the ground's quaking under my feet, and I don't know where the slide will come to a halt.

My family. What's going to happen to them? How did all this happen? When did it all start? How the fuck did it all go so wrong?

A hand squeezes my arm. Hoshi. I don't know how I'd even imagine facing this without her.

"It'll be okay, Trip," she whispers.

It won't, but I love her for saying that. As long as I can go on pretending it's true, maybe I can go on acting like it is.

There are three people in the lounge.

Mom and Dad, of course. The third, I don't recognize for a moment. Then I see the dog-collar.

"You must be Trip." The guy stands up and extends his hand. Of course, he's Pastor Newman, the stand-in till Pastor Cunningham gets well again. Oldish, not bad-looking, though he's got that sort of anxious smoothness that clerics always seem to have in a crisis, pouring oil on the troubled waters. What I don't understand is what he's doing here at this hour of the morning. It's not like he might somehow have been passing the front door and just happened to see it standing open.

"I called him, Trip." Mom sees my bewilderment. "He mentioned to me after the service, that if we ever needed… and your Dad … your Dad needs to talk to someone. Under the seal of the confessional, of course."

The pastor nods sympathetically. "I'm sure something can be arranged. It was an act of God's grace that I happened to be nearby. One of the parishioners… this terrible attack has affected so many people."

"Elaine Sherman, I'll bet," Mom says immediately. "Calls Pastor Cunningham out all the time. Lost both her sons… I don't think she'll ever get over it."

He nods again, looking saintly. "It's my duty to minister to those suffering grievous loss."

Dad's sitting in an armchair, all by himself. His hands are clasped across his face and he's rocking, rocking, rocking. Pastor Newman turns towards him and puts a hand gently on his shoulder.

"You do understand, Mister Tucker, that under these circumstances we find it of the greatest benefit to the soul if the penitent unburdens themselves of _everything_. Every last detail of their trouble, of any activities they may possibly feel conflict with their Christian duty of love and forgiveness. The Church likens it to a full cleansing of guilt, of enormous value both spiritually and psychologically."

"I know he understands that, Father. Don't you, Charlie?"

Dad nods, but doesn't stop rocking.

"Perhaps, in the circumstances, it would be best if we began straightaway. Mrs Tucker, is there a room where your husband and I can be perfectly private for a while?"

"Certainly, Father. There's a little room where we store the wine racks. My eldest daughter, she's very into experimenting with home-made wines. You'll have to take a bottle with you when you go." She's nervous, and prattling, but she helps Dad to his feet. "Come along, Charlie. You know you'll feel so much better afterwards."

"Lizzie," he moans as he gets up, an old, broken man. "My little girl. My sweet little girl."

Lizzie was her sweet little girl too, and my sweet little sister, but Mom doesn't waver. "I know, Charlie. I know."

"She is with the blessed in heaven," intones the pastor. "We who are left must comfort and console one another as best we can in the spirit of the Lord."

Respect for the cloth keeps my mouth shut, but Hoshi and I trade a glance. At a guess she thinks the guy's a sanctimonious bore just like I do. Pastor Cunningham's a good man, and does a lot of good work in the community, but ministering to the need there's been around here since the attack must have worn him into the ground. No wonder he's gotten sick, he must be totally exhausted. Mrs. Sherman was bad enough before Joe and Stephen … before they …

They…

It's kind of a relief when the three of them are out of the room. We hear them shuffling down the hall, then the door to the storeroom opens and closes. There's a little table in there where Catherine sits to do her stuff with the wine, and Mom will organize something else as a second seat. And hopefully talking will do something to ease Dad, at least a little. Though I haven't even started to imagine how I'll forgive him for what he wanted done to an innocent man, a _good_ man, who was a guest in his house.

I look at my chronometer. I want ten minutes to have passed, but they haven't quite.

Hoshi and I sit on the sofa like we expect it to collapse underneath us. We clasp hands, and for all the strong front she's keeping up I can tell by the way her fingers close on mine that she's as glad as I am to have someone's support.

The storeroom door opens and closes again a few minutes later, and we hear Mom's footsteps in the hall. She comes into the lounge and looks across it at me. "Is he dead?"

I'm not sure who she means by 'he'. "Carl's still breathin'," I answer evenly. "He won't be wearin' low-necked shirts for a while, but thanks to Hoshi here he'll live to answer for what he did."

"No … not Carl. Malcolm."

"No thanks to that sick bastard. He…" I have to swallow the thick bile that's rushed into the back of my throat. "He horsewhipped him. If we hadn't gotten there he'd have …" Hoshi squeezes my hand gently, but I've already realized there are some things Mom doesn't need to hear – whatever else he may be, Carl's her sister's boy. As soon as we've called the emergency services we'll go down and remove the things Carl had ready for his sick games; okay, it's interfering with a crime scene, but I'm sure Malcolm will understand. The way the police will see it, a whipping's bad enough, they'll have enough there to put Carl away for the duration. Starfleet will nail him to the wall. As for the rest of it, what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve over, and I have to protect Mom.

I check my chronometer. Shit, eleven minutes. "I've got to call an ambulance." I stand up quickly.

"He's that bad?" She puts a hand to her throat. "Why didn't you call them at once?"

"Because he said not to." I walk out into the hall so she won't ask me why a badly injured man should want the emergency services delayed. I don't have an answer.

I pick up the phone. It feels weird in my hand, slippery.

Nine. One. One. I know the number but I've never dialed it before.

 _"Emergency, what service do you require?"_

Just for a second I can't answer. The whole unreality of the situation just rushes over me like a wave. Then I hear my own voice speaking, low and toneless. "Ambulance. And police."

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	19. Chapter 19

_Sato_

When we get back down to the stable everything's quiet.

His face grim, Trip collects the things we've already decided the police don't need to find, and drops them into a water-butt outside. It's unlikely anyone will think to look in there, with the evidence of what else occurred right in front of them. As far as we can tell, it hadn't gone beyond the whipping yet, though the thought that anyone could intend to heap more pain on a man already so horribly hurt is enough to make me sick to my stomach, even if the man in question hadn't been Malcolm. I hope they put the bastard in a cell and nail the door shut on him.

Unbelievably, Carl's asleep. He's just lying there sprawled on his back with the last traces of a smug grin on his face. I can only imagine he filled up with Dutch courage before he started, and now it's taken him out.

I want to kick the living daylights out of him, but instead I kneel beside Malcolm. His face is so drained it looks gray, but he's still conscious. His eyes flick open as he hears us. "The ambulance is on its way."

His lips move, shaping the word 'Good', but he hasn't the strength to utter any sound. I've brought down some more towels, and I clean his face gently with a facecloth and pat it dry. I probably shouldn't – they'll want to take photographs, gather evidence – but there are indelible marks elsewhere of what he's suffered, and I know that stubborn British pride of his will hate to be seen looking at less than his best; a Starfleet officer should always appear well-groomed. The guy was just beaten half to death, and managed somehow to endure that without screaming; a few cuts from that damned whip must have landed on his head too, because blood has streaked down through his hair and joined the mess of tears and mucus and sweat that I wipe away. I hope he won't mind too much that we saw him like this, because we love him, but he'd never forgive himself for letting strangers see him so damaged and vulnerable.

"Do you want a little more water?"

"Please," he manages to whisper. After we've gotten a couple of sips down him – just enough to wet his mouth again – he puts his head down again, but then turns it towards Trip. "Horse."

"They'll be fine." Trip clearly thinks his mind's wandering.

"No. Check. Far one."

"Malcolm, we're not worryin' about any damn horse while you're in this state."

I'm pretty sure it's against regulations to address your senior officer as 'Bollock-brain', but that certainly sounds like the word Malcolm uses. He seems to be getting agitated, and we can't have that, so with a resigned sigh Trip stands up and walks over to the stall with the chestnut horse in it. "Sonofabitch!"

He jerks open the stall door and goes inside. After about half a minute, "Hoshi, can you manage by yourself?"

"Sure. What's wrong?"

"Damn horse is givin' birth. Like that's all we needed!"

"Will you be okay?"

"She seems to be okay for now. Front feet are just showin'. Shouldn't be long." His voice takes on a tender note, and I can hear him patting and stroking her. "Hey, momma, you're doin' fine. Take it easy. Have a little rest if you need to. Your baby'll be along soon."

Malcolm produces the ghost of a smile. "This should … be a new experience for him," he whispers.

"I'm sure he'll cope just fine." I hold his hand and wonder how long it'll take the ambulance to get here. His grip is usually firm, but his fingers hardly move in response, and his gaze is cloudy, unfocused. He feels cold, too, but I daren't lay even a light blanket on top of him; the fabric would stick to the wounds.

In any case the emergency services arrive even before I'm hoping to hear the sound of distant sirens. They come in quietly, though, there's only the sound of the vehicles coming around the house and down the lawn, and suddenly the stable's full of people, policemen and paramedics.

The paramedics naturally take priority. They check both Malcolm and Carl, and obviously they come to the conclusion that Carl's in no immediate danger so they concentrate their efforts on Malcolm. The hiss of a hypospray is music to my ears, as finally I know he's out of the agony he must have been in. Two shots; when I ask what the second's for, the guy just smiles. "Just a precaution, Ma'am." Probably some kind of antibiotic, I suppose.

They work over him for a bit longer, checking his stats and doing whatever else has to be done in these situations. Then they bring in a stretcher and gently lift him onto it.

One of the policemen joined Trip in the stall. A lot of the people around here are from farming backgrounds, so it's no surprise – and a huge relief – that he knows what he's doing. Not that I think Trip's incompetent, but if he were dealing with a warp engine giving birth I'd be a whole lot more confident in his abilities. Obviously most of my attention's concentrated on Malcolm, but after a couple of minutes I hear the sounds of joyful relief, and something about it being a colt, and just fine, and they help the mare back to her feet when she wants to get up. It takes a few minutes for the foal to find its legs and start nursing, but it can't be more than ten before Trip's back with me, and taking in the welcome sight of the ship's armory officer finally getting professional medical help.

"Is there a bed in the house we can make him comfortable in?" asks the guy who seems to be the senior medic.

Trip looks taken aback. "Shouldn't he be goin' to a hospital?"

"They've had an incident at County A&E. We're under orders to treat at the location if it's at all possible. I know this looks bad, but it's not life-threatening. We can do a lot to make him comfortable, and it'll spare him the long distance to the city hospital."

"Your Uncle Ed was talking about that over lunch. How much pressure the hospitals are under," I remind Trip. The local hospitals are still crowded to the eaves with the long-term sick and injured from the weapon strike. Most wanted to stay close to their families, and the additional trauma of separating them after what had happened was something that should be avoided if at all possible. We hadn't heard of any incident at the nearest, but things like this happen and can't be avoided. "If it's not possible to take him to County, maybe it's best for him to stay here, where we can keep him company and look after him. I'm sure he'd prefer that anyway."

Trip obviously recognizes the truth of this. "Sure. If you're sure he'll be okay…"

"We can start his treatment straight away, and a district nurse can come in to do the follow-up. If you've any concerns, though, you should call a doctor of course."

He offers to take them up to the house, and the three of them leave, carrying the stretcher carefully. I'm left with Carl and the policemen, one of whom has been carrying out a careful initial inspection of the scene in the meantime. He picks up the transceiver, the hypospray and the prayer book, which were lying neatly by the side of the straw bale when Trip and I arrived. He also looks closely around the floor at the front of the bale, and picks up something small from among the straw there. He's wearing plastic gloves, and places the four items delicately in a clear plastic bag. All part of the gathering of the evidence.

His companion is obviously the one tasked with interviewing me. I shudder to think what I must look like, my hair falling anyhow and my clothes all mussed, but he's impersonally kind. Asks me if I'm hurt, if I'm sure I'm okay, if I need to sit down for a while.

Actually I hadn't noticed it before, but now he's mentioned it I find that my knees are having problems holding me up. I feel such a wuss, but I _could_ do with sitting down right now.

He lugs over another bale. (Naturally the one Malcolm was lying on will need to be examined, forensic evidence or whatever. They won't want anything contaminating it.) I fall rather than sit down onto it, and put my head between my knees. I have this sudden awful feeling I'm going to faint, or throw up, or something equally stupid.

The policeman doesn't seem to think I'm being a wuss. He talks to me kindly and says there's no hurry, things like this can shake anyone. As if I haven't seen alien corpses hung up to be milked for their fluids, and been tortured by Reptilians drilling into my skull; but of course he doesn't know that. He doesn't know I'm a bridge officer on Starfleet's flagship, and I should be able to cope better than this.

This reminder helps to steady me. It's only a minute or so before I'm able to sit up again, and hopefully a little of the color has come back to my face.

Naturally, he tells me he has to ask me a few questions. Get my account of what happened. Obviously the more I can tell him the better, but I can take my time. Then he'll write up a copy and produce a statement, which I'll have to sign.

I look down at Carl, still snoring and oblivious. "Aren't you going to do anything about him?"

"We'll be taking him into custody, Ma'am. Pendin' inquiries. 'Soon as he's awake we'll be takin' his statement, but I guess that won't be till sometime tomorrow."

I take a deep breath. In the couple of minutes it took us to walk down the lawn, Trip and I established the way we have to play it. We don't know why Carl hates Malcolm enough to do this; we don't know anything. We just went to his room for a late-night drink and found him missing. I hate the pretense it's going to involve, but it's damage limitation. That's the best we can do right now.

"Well – I only arrived from Japan yesterday…"

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	20. Chapter 20

_Reed_

The lampshade has faded yellow roses on it.

This is surprising, but not very, because I haven't the energy to be very surprised about anything. I just lie there looking at it hazily for a while before something else catches my attention.

There's a bar of yellow sunshine on the wall beyond it, and a small, flickering shape across it resolves itself presently as the shadow of a butterfly fluttering against the window. Maybe one of Phlox's moth larvae hatched and escaped or something.

I still can't work out where the lampshade fits into this. I'm damned if I've seen one of those in Sickbay before. Come to think of it, Sickbay has no external viewing ports, so where's the sunlight coming from?

I'm lying on my stomach, which isn't so surprising, but what I find when I try – rather cautiously – to move is less surprising than unwelcome. I'm wearing a Foley catheter, and not for the first time I might add.

Bloody hell.

What _is_ this place? The more I look at it the less like Sickbay it appears.

Actually it's not Sickbay at all.

Memory crashes in on me, so vivid that I seize the sides of the mattress, bracing myself. The movement, however, doesn't bring the instant surge of agony that I expect. It's uncomfortable, bordering on painful, but it's bearable. My wrists have dressings on them and my back feels stiff and sore, but that's pretty well it.

"Malcolm. It's okay. You're safe."

This is Trip's bed, and the owner of it is sitting beside me.

I blink at him owlishly, and then I see who's standing behind him, and I freeze.

Trip pats me reassuringly on the arm. "You're going to be fine, Malcolm. But if you're feeling up to it, the sheriff here would like to take a statement."

"I appreciate you're not in the best shape right now, Lieutenant Reed. I'll only need to talk to you in private for a few minutes. I'm sure Commander Tucker here will excuse us."

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Where there's one rat there's usually a fucking nest of them.

Trip introduces the visitor. It's all I can do not to burst out laughing.

Sheriff Harris, as I live and breathe.

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	21. Chapter 21

_Tucker_

Leaving Malcolm alone with the sheriff, I make my way downstairs.

Hoshi and Mom are in the kitchen. Luckily none of the family were woken by the noise we made or by the emergency services arriving (they must have switched their lights and sirens off as they turned in the drive Sunday night, probably just being considerate to the folks around), so they took themselves off yesterday morning, still without a clue that anything had happened, thank the Almighty. I daresay they'll find out when the case hits the papers, but in the meantime we don't want to have to face the barrage of questions, and we just shooed them away as quickly and politely as possible. I know Catherine was looking a bit sulky as she left, because we've hardly had a chance to talk, but she's only away on vacation for a couple of days, and I hadn't the energy to care. I'll make it up to her another time.

"He's awake."

"Finally. Thank god for that." A little of the strain dies out of Hoshi's face as she turns from the sink; she's been chopping vegetables, which is probably one way to let out some of her emotions. Come to think of it, anyone needing a turnip chopping in half could just give me a cleaver right now and stand back. All I'd have to do is picture Carl's face on it and it'd be in two pieces before you could say 'whip'.

"They said he'd sleep for a good while, honey." Mom's been baking. She's like me, she can't stay still when she's upset, and the work surfaces are covered with the results: loaves of bread, pies and tarts, more than we could eat if the whole family turned up for dinner. We'll have to give some away to the neighbors, unless we can pack it in one of the freezers.

"I know. But it's been more than thirty-eight hours!"

"A body gets itself well in its own time, sweetheart. Isn't nothing you can do to hurry it. The paramedic said he'd wake up when he was good 'n ready."

Hoshi looks mulish. "I still think he should have gone to hospital."

"They've got more'n they know what to do with already in County. Best for him if he stays here where we can look after him. I've nursed a good few people in my time and ain't none of them died on me yet. Your Lieutenant's a young man and he's strong. He'll get over this." She pours out a coffee and pushes it across the table towards me. "Sit yourself down, Trip. You look worn out, and it won't do anyone no good if you make yourself sick on top of everything else."

Well, she has a point. And I could do with a good strong cup of coffee. I sit down at the floury table and take a cautious sip.

It's good and strong all right – she evidently isn't afraid of killing me with a caffeine overdose. That said, it was all that kept me on my feet for more hours than I care to remember after _Enterprise_ took that pounding at Azati Prime; if it was going to kill me I'd have been dead before we got out of there.

"You have one too, honey." Mom pours out a cup for Hoshi. "Now I've got the two of you here and he's awake so you can stop worryin' about him, there's a couple 'a questions I'd like to ask."

Hoshi and I exchange wary glances. We've been expecting this, and we've got to be careful. Mom's nobody's fool.

My co-conspirator sits down beside me, and Mom sits opposite us. Her hands are still coated in flour, but I can still see that her knuckles are swollen; I think irrelevantly that it's doubtful whether her wedding ring would come off without being cut.

"Now I know Carl's always been a strange boy in some ways," Mom starts slowly. "His dad leavin' hit him hard, and Carol wasn't as good a mom as she could have been."

I say nothing. My cousin's family life wasn't anywhere near as good as mine, but it's not like he didn't have anyone. And he had the same chances at school as I did. He just didn't choose to take them.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but right now I think fairness is a tough thing to ask.

"I think he was jealous of you, Trip. Jealous of your success, the way you got on with everyone, did so well in your exams…"

"Every goddamn thing I worked my ass off for," I spit. "What's that got to do with the price o'cheese? Wasn't my fault he didn't want to put in the effort, would rather go runnin' round with Hal Lazenby's bunch of little thugs. I saved his ass more'n once, and he didn't even thank me for it. Don't even try to tell me I should feel sorry for the little prick."

Her mouth folds inward momentarily at the swear-word, but she doesn't try to argue. "You were gifted, Trip, even when you were little. You still are. Not just the engineering part of it. You make people like you, you even make them love you, and you don't even have to try. Carl never had that, and it's not something you learn. You have to be born with it."

"So that gives him the right to whip an innocent man half to death?" I yell, jerking to my feet.

She looks back at me steadily. "Why would he want to do that, Trip?"

I hold her stare. I have to. "Same reason Dad didn't want me to interfere. The both of them blame Malcolm for not shootin' hell outa the Xindi.

"Jesus. I'll tell you, Mom, and I'd tell Dad and I'd tell anyone else who wants to know, if the cap'n had said the word Malcolm'd've fired every damn torpedo on _Enterprise_ , he'd have fired the cannons 'til the relays fused, he'd have flown the damn _ship_ into the Xindi homeworld if that's what it took. But the cap'n never said the word, and you know what, I'm _glad_ he didn't, because killin' millions of innocent people on their world wouldn't have brought back a single one of ours.

"Yeah. It took me a while to realize that, and maybe sometimes even now I don't believe it, but it's the goddamn truth. And to realize that Lizzie was the last person in the world to want me to get revenge for her. You remember what she always used to say? 'Revenge is like bitin' the dog because the dog bit you.'

"I wanted revenge when we shipped out lookin' for the Xindi. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. 'Far as I was concerned, that was what we were goin' for – to kick back, and kick as hard as we could. But there was one guy on the ship who didn't let himself get cruel an' vindictive. One guy who didn't want to just kill the Xindi because they were _there_. One decent guy who tried to talk to me about Lizzie, who was brave enough an' kind enough to risk gettin' his head bitten off for it. And that's the guy who's lyin' up there–" I jerk my thumb towards the ceiling – "with half his back torn off by one of _my family_ while _my dad_ knew it was happenin' and tried to stop me puttin' a stop to it!"

Hoshi's hand has slipped into mine. I get back control of myself with a gulp of coffee and sit down again, my eyes burning.

Mom hasn't moved. "I don't doubt that," she says quietly. "But that doesn't answer the question of how Carl got the drop on your friend to start with.

"I've got eyes in my head, Trip. Your Lieutenant Reed is a very fit young man. He's head of Security on your ship, he knows how to handle himself in a difficult situation. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he'd drop the likes of Carl without so much as breakin' sweat. But this was the hundredth time, and I want to know why.

"The paramedics didn't find any evidence of any drugs, and I saw when we changed the dressings he'd been tied up like a hog. What I can't understand is how he let himself get into that situation, him bein' the officer I think he is.

"Now I know Carl has a gun, like most of the people around here. It was still in his room that night, after he'd been taken away. I checked.

"So that leaves the question, and I'm askin' you if you have an answer."

Hoshi squeezes my hand.

This is all going to come out sooner or later, and best she hears it from me.

I know that till we get to talk to Malcolm (Carl sure as hell isn't going to tell me the truth, even if he ever has the brass neck to show his face around here again) the best I have is a theory. But it's a theory that fits the facts, and till I find out otherwise I'm running with it.

"Because I think the stupid sonofabitch got it into his head that Malcolm and I are lovers, and I'm guessin' he threatened to tell everyone about it. Make trouble for Starfleet, break me and Hoshi up, and get me a disciplinary for fraternizin' with a junior officer. He probably blackmailed Malcolm into meetin' him down in the stable, and after that …." _After that he was going to rape him_ , but the words won't come out of my mouth even now.

Mom still hasn't moved. Her eyes hold me; she can sense the evasion. "He thought you and Lieutenant Reed were lovers."

I take a chance. "That's what Malcolm told us."

There's a pause that seems to last a lifetime. Then she asks the question I've prayed she won't.

"And is it true?"

I have to say no, I have to protect us, I have to protect my family. I have to lie and deny something that's as much a part of me as the heart beating in my chest.

"Yes." I swallow. "When we went to that club, we … we kissed afterwards. It was my fault, I was stupid. An' I think Malcolm … he acted like he'd seen someone, though he didn't let on. And the next day, after lunch, Carl followed him down to the lake – you remember, Malcolm came back wet through. I think that was when Carl put the squeeze on him."

I swallow again, and lift my head; I've done nothing to be ashamed of and I'm through denying what I feel. "I love Malcolm. And I think he let Carl do what he did because it was the only way to protect me."

Hoshi's hand tightens on mine as my world falls apart in the silence that follows.

Finally, "Trip, I wouldn't have believed you if you'd denied there was something between you."

For a moment I can't believe I've heard the words right. I just sit there blinking at her, my mouth open like a Hallowe'en pumpkin. "You … you don't…"

"Mind?" She smiles sadly. "You can't help who you love, Trip."

We both think of the man upstairs who hasn't gotten out of his bed since Pastor Newman finally helped us coax him into it around sunup yesterday morning. Somehow she has to go on loving someone who'd wink at the brutalizing of a helpless young man who'd eaten her food and admired her plants. And somehow she'll do it, too.

I'm not sure I can, but that's something I've got to think about.

There's a knock on the door.

It's not what I want to deal with right now, but maybe we need some time to get a grip on this new situation. Hoshi gets up and opens it, and Sherriff Harris enters the kitchen.

"I apologize if I'm intruding," he says in his gravelly voice. "I just thought you'd appreciate an update on the current situation."

"Certainly, we'd be very grateful." Mom invites him to sit down, and offers him a coffee, both of which he refuses.

"Thank you, Ma'am, but I have a busy day in front of me. You may be interested to know that your nephew has made a statement admitting to blackmail, assault and grievous bodily harm."

She inclines her head. We expected that. Maybe I'm the only person who suspects there was another charge in the list, one with 'indecent' attached, but that for some reason of his own the sheriff's withholding that one.

"However," Harris continues, "the police are dropping all charges."

"WHAT?" Hoshi and I jump to our feet.

His deep eyes survey us blandly. "Lieutenant Reed refuses to press charges or to give evidence in a court of law."

"Sonofabitch! He can't _do_ that! Can't _we_ do anything?"

I swear there's almost a smile on his face as he looks back at me. "You can try to change his mind, Commander. He knows how to get in touch with me if he wants to."

Me, change Malcolm's mind once it's made up. Yeah. Bring it on.

"So Carl just gets away _scot-free?_ " Hoshi cries indignantly.

The dark gaze switches to her, but it's not smiling anymore. "For the present, perhaps, Ensign Sato. But maybe not for long."

There's something in the chilling way these words are said that gives me pause.

"At any rate, Ma'am," – Harris has moved towards the door, but glances back at Mom – "there's at least one good side to the situation. Nobody knows who doesn't need to know. I believe it'll be best for all concerned if we keep it that way."

She doesn't even pretend not to understand him. "I appreciate that thought, officer."

"My pleasure, Ma'am." He nods to me and to Hoshi, and takes his leave.

When he's gone, there's a long silence.

Once again, Mom's the one to break it. "Well, Trip, there's one thing this proves for certain.

"Whatever you feel for _him_ , that young man upstairs certainly loves _you._ "

Something's still wrong. I look at Hoshi, who stares back at me steadily; not prompting, not forbidding, just accepting whatever I choose to do.

I take a deep breath. "Mom, I'm through hidin'. There's something else you need to know…"

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	22. Chapter 22

_Sato_

Well, so that's that, as far as the Tuckers are concerned.

That scumbag of a cousin gets away with what he did, nobody gets to know about it, and Malcolm just has to live with the consequences and keep his mouth shut.

Ellen accepted what Trip told her about the three of us with surprising equanimity. She did say that it would probably be for the best if the knowledge went no further, but I got the feeling she was kind of honored that we trusted her with it. I wouldn't be surprised if she had other questions, maybe some time when things have calmed down a little more and we get another few minutes' privacy, but I know that Trip feels better for getting it off his chest; and even though it was undoubtedly a big risk he took, I'm proud, in a way, that he didn't hide what the three of us are doing like it's something he ought to be ashamed of.

It's not 'that' as far as _I'm_ concerned, though, because I can smell a rat. A little dark rat with neat little paws and sharp teeth, who's usually found behind _Enterprise_ 's Tactical Station when he isn't in his favorite nest in the Armory.

Admittedly it's horribly plausible that he'd refuse to press charges, because it's totally Malcolm to want to shoulder all of the burden himself. If his silence can keep all this hushed up and the Tuckers out of the papers, then he'll do it for Trip's sake.

So yeah, I'm with it so far.

But there are a few things he hasn't explained, and until he does – and I know him well enough to tell when he's trying to pull a fast one – then this is not a closed incident.

No, Malcolm Reed, you are not getting away with this.

So don't even think about trying.

=/\=

I wait till late evening, after we've all eaten dinner and the district nurse has called in to check Malcolm's dressings and remove his catheter.

She's told us that he has to move, even though it will be painful. The more he moves the less he'll stiffen up from his injuries, so he has to push himself as hard as he can. She undoubtedly doesn't know him, or she'd have been more insistent that he shouldn't push himself too hard.

A couple of times during this lecture his eyes drifted to mine, especially after the parts about 'stiffening up' and 'pushing as hard as he can', and even Trip had to sit there with his mouth folded in to stop himself laughing out loud.

The nurse helped him to turn over, and now he's lying back – very gingerly – against soft pillows. Trip has escorted her downstairs like the Southern gentleman he's so fond of reminding us that he is, and will be back up again shortly with the tea-tray. In deference to the patient's debilitated state, we've even ordered in some special English breakfast tea to help him get his strength up again.

When the door finally closes behind her, Malcolm heaves a sigh of relief. "Bloody hell, wasn't sure then whether I was getting a health lecture or a sex education lesson."

He's looking a hundred times better than he did yesterday morning; though there's still an exhausted look around his eyes, they meet mine with the old familiar humor. "Not the best experience of my life, having that sodding catheter taken out. Don't suppose you'd care to kiss it better?"

"I thought you were finished with the both of us, Lieutenant?" I keep my face absolutely straight, and have the satisfaction of seeing horror suddenly printed on his.

I am a wicked woman and Pastor Newman would undoubtedly tell me I'm bound for hell. I absolutely adore sitting there and watching the fearsome Lieutenant Malcolm Reed squirm.

"Christ, Hoshi, I – I didn't mean a word of it, you know I didn't!"

"You seemed pretty damn convincing to me." He puts his hand out towards me and I ignore it. If he thinks I'm weakening he won't feel he has to tell me anything. And until I get the truth out of him I'm _not_ weakening. This is our relationship I'm fighting for, a relationship that has to be grounded in trust and honesty or it's absolutely worthless.

"I had to say that," he says desperately. "You don't understand!"

"What's there to understand?" I flash back. "I'm sick of it, Malcolm. You will, you won't, you do, you don't, it's on, it's off, it's over, it's not! This time I want an explanation. And I want the truth, not some bullshit story you've thought up. Or it really is over, whether you want it to be or not!"

He's paler now than he was when we found him draped over that damned straw bale. He doesn't have to tell me it matters to him, I can see that it does, but that's even more of a reason for me to fight him to a standstill.

He drops his hand and slumps back against the pillows, wincing at the resulting pain. "OK," he says wearily. "You win. But you may not like what you get."

I feel a momentary twinge of guilt. He's still sick. But this is still all a game of tactics, and you don't weaken just because your enemy's at a disadvantage. On the contrary, that's when you tighten your stranglehold.

"Wait till Trip comes up." I want to take his hand anyway, because he looks so defeated, so I go and arrange the roses in the vase instead. They look incongruous among the assorted chunks of machinery on the shelf, but that's the only place I could put them that was out of the way.

He heaves a sigh. "Fair enough."

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. I expect him to be looking at me, but he isn't. He's looking out of the window, and the way he shifts when he thinks I'm not looking tells me this is going to be a long, uncomfortable night for him, despite all the painkillers. And he won't be fully fit when we go back to _Enterprise_ next week, so the captain is going to have to be given some kind of an explanation. Still, I was amazed by how much the paramedics were able to do with the equipment they had on board the ambulance. I hadn't thought stuff like that would be standard issue; the dermal regenerator was more like something I'd expect to see on board the ship. Things are certainly looking up for the health service these days.

A couple of minutes later Trip comes up with the tray. He gives the roses a bit of a disgusted look, and I don't think he's any too pleased with the lampshade either, but he doesn't say anything.

Malcolm's face brightens slightly when he notices the tea. It's even in a cup and saucer, which has to be a first around here. Ellen's definitely pushing the boat out for him.

"Didn't even know we _had_ one of these," says Trip, handing over the cup and saucer. "Must have been in the back of the cupboard for the last, oh, thirty years?"

"Didn't know civilization was that old on this side of the Pond." A wicked twinkle gleams over the rim of the cup.

"You've got a simple choice, Loo-tenant. You can take that tea internally or externally."

"Consider me suitably cowed." He sips the tea. "It's delicious. Thank you."

"Right." I get up, cross the room and shut the door. "We're not going to be interrupted. Spill the beans, Malcolm."

Trip looks uncomfortable. "Hoshi…"

"No! We can't go on like this, don't you see that? He told us to trust him but he doesn't trust us. He was in trouble and the first thing he did was push us away. Well that has to stop. Either you trust us, Malcolm, or it's over. Really and truly, it's over."

"I do trust you, Hoshi!"

I cross my arms and lean against the door. "So tell us what really happened here."

He puts the teacup down on the tray and studies it. "Very well," he says at last, in a low voice. "I'll tell you what I can.

"What did Harris tell you about what Carl was charged with?"

"GBH," Trip answers instantly. "Assault. And … and blackmail."

"Did he say blackmail for what?"

Trip doesn't reply to that as quickly. He just looks down at his hands. "He saw us, didn't he?"

Malcolm looks at him narrowly. "What?"

"In the alley." Miserably. "He saw me kissin' you."

An incredulous huff of laughter. "No, you prat. That was nothing to do with it. Whatever made you think that?"

"Well, you pushed me away like you'd heard something … so it … it was kind of obvious…"

Malcolm starts to chuckle. "Well, if we were in a James Bond film set in the 1900s I suppose it'd be a working theory. Unfortunately, the reality is … well, a little less glamorous."

Hope starts to appear in Trip's face, replacing the despair. "That wasn't it?"

"No." He picks up a biscuit, goes to dunk it in the tea and replaces it on the plate, undunked. "Listen," he goes on quietly. "If I tell you what really happened, this must stop here. We mustn't even talk about it between ourselves. It's Starfleet classified. And believe me, it's dangerous. I shouldn't be telling you anything about it. And it's not pretty. If you don't like it, remember I warned you."

"Go on." I step forward, watching him intently.

He leans back on the pillows, staring out of the window. "Last week, when I was on Terceira, I was approached by … someone I used to work with. Long before _Enterprise_ …. Believe it or not, I worked undercover for Starfleet for a while." His mouth tightens. "He told me that Terra Prime has established a real hold in this area since the Xindi attack, and that Carl was one of their prime agitators. Starfleet wants to take action, but Prime are a tough nut to crack. They wanted to draw Carl out, make him act … make him vulnerable. And they knew I was coming to visit."

"So they used you." Trip is horrified, probably on more than one level.

"I _volunteered_." His face is hard. "I'm a Starfleet security officer and Terra Prime's activities could one day threaten Starfleet's existence.

"They leaked information to a source in this area that I'm financially compromised. Carl took the bait. He had a grudge against _Enterprise_ over the Xindi affair and against Starfleet for inciting the attack in the first place for drawing Earth to the attention of 'aliens' … the standard Terra Prime rhetoric. When he saw me alone, he couldn't resist the opportunity."

"You went out there deliberately. You wanted him to corner you." It makes sense, but I don't understand why this would make him want to push us away. "But if this was nothing to do with you and Trip, why the rest of it? Why were you so awful to me afterwards?"

"Hoshi, I knew then what he'd do. The … there's information about him that made it likely. His psychological profile. If anything went wrong, I might not have survived. Even if I survived, I…." A twisted smile. "I likely wouldn't have been in any fit state to be in a relationship with anyone for a while. And let's face it, it's not the sort of thing I'd be likely to want to talk about."

I want to slap him and hug him. Trip, however, is following the story intently, thinking it through. "The hypospray and transceiver. Explain those."

Malcolm exhales. "I was given drugs to administer to him when I got him alone. The first … well, the first's a bad one: it breaks down a person's mental processes, makes it easier to question them and get answers. Unfortunately, while it's getting a grip, it destabilises their sense of proportion. I was supposed to get a whipping as part of some idiotic 'exorcism' fantasy he wanted to play out. He had the riding crop ready. Unluckily for me, he lost his head completely when I injected the drug into him. Nothing less than a full-blown flogging would do."

There's no argument about this part. I remember, sickly, the book between his jaws. A prayer book. I find hot tears pricking at my eyes. "Malcolm, he could have _killed_ you!"

"I thought at one point he was going to," he says ruefully. "Luckily for me, you two interrupted before he could finish the job. On your crusade to stop me surrendering my virtue to keep Trip's honour intact."

Trip raises a hand as if to slap him, and he twists his head away, grinning, and continues. "The transceiver was to transmit directly the answers to a number of questions I was ordered to ask him. It wouldn't have been enough to record them: I could have lost the device, and then the evidence would be lost with it.

"The hypospray contained a second drug. It works with the first, to make the subject open to suggestion. As soon as I'd got the answers I wanted, I used it to convince him that he'd resisted my interrogation, that I'd given up, thinking he didn't know anything. That way, he won't panic and warn anyone. After that – my job was done. I didn't have anything to hide. And God, I was glad to see those bloody paramedics. I was just about done in."

"But Terra Prime still think you're open to blackmail. They'll try again!"

A wry smile. "Cousin Carl and I are now in what you'd call a position of 'mutually assured destruction'. Even Terra Prime won't want it spread across the newspapers what he did to me; too many people still regard me as a 'hero of the Expanse'. Basically, if he keeps quiet about me, I'll keep quiet about him. Starfleet will lean on the police to be discreet about my supposed 'financial indiscretions' and all the rest of it; the whole thing will be quietly forgotten, thanks to my refusing to press charges or give evidence. And from the impression I got of your Inspector Harris – sorry, _Sheriff_ Harris – I'd imagine he frightened Cousin Carl royally. He'll know he's under suspicion, and he won't be in any hurry to put a foot wrong again, even for Terra Prime." He pauses. "Trip, Harris told me your dad may be involved to some degree. But I'm sure they'll understand. He's not young … and after losing Lizzie and all … I'm sure they'll take that into consideration if he's taken in."

Trip nods silently, and I take hold of his hand. This has to be so difficult and painful for him to come to terms with, after all the tragedy of losing his sister, but his family has to deal with its own wounds in its own way. Ellen told me last night that they're going to be moving; this was the last straw, and maybe if they go someplace else – Mississippi perhaps, where she came from originally – they won't be living with the constant reminders of how their life used to be before Lizzie died.

But as far as everything else goes, I'm convinced. I wipe tears away as I bend over Malcolm to hug him as closely as I can without hurting him. "Malcolm, so help me, if you ever pull something like this again I'll damn well kill you!"

"If I ever pull something like this again I may not live long enough to let you." His arms go around me. "Come on Hoshi, I got away with it. You don't have to organise my funeral just yet."

With my head against his chest, a thought occurs to me that brings a spike of sudden fear. "Malcolm, the police – they took the hypospray and stuff as evidence!"

The ribcage under my cheek shifts in a silent laugh. "What they took and what they keep may be two different things."

I turn to look up at him. His eyes are honest and open and amused. "Wheels within wheels, Hoshi. The case has been dropped, so no-one's going to be watching the evidence all that carefully. I'd be surprised if the bags haven't already been switched for ones with less interesting contents."

It's kind of a scary thought, but it's the sort of thing you read goes on. I just never expected to be this close to it, but I suppose it's an obvious precaution.

Trip's laughing quietly, on the edge of tears himself. "So there wasn't anybody in that goddamn alley after all. I've been scarin' myself half to death for nothing!"

"Well, there might have been. Could have been a tramp, or a cat, or anything. Good Lord, Trip, you think anyone's going to make anything out of one bloody kiss these days? Get a life."

"Bastard. Like you'd have cared anyhow." He grips Malcolm's hand, hard. "I'm just glad you're okay, Mal. I'd rather anything than lose you."

"I'll be fine, mate. Good as new in no time." Malcolm returns the grasp, and gives us a sly grin. "Just don't think I'm going to lose count of what you two owe me when we get back to _Enterprise_ and I'm fit for _active_ duty."

"Oh, you'll get what you're owed, Loo-tenant. With interest."

"And we won't breathe a word of what you've said. Ever, after today," I promise. I mean every word of it. I know what it must have cost him to tell us all this. He takes all this security stuff with absolute seriousness.

"No. Not a word. Ever." Trip leans in too. The three of us are together, and the pieces of my world reassemble.

See?

I knew Malcolm would tell me the truth eventually.

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	23. The Epilogue

_Reed_

It's done.

I wove my web of lies and half-truths as skilfully as a spider, and tangled Trip and Hoshi up in it like willing flies. Their trust in me is restored, and they never dream that their confidence in my integrity is a reproach that I can hardly bear.

As I hold them to me, my feelings are dual and bitter.

I wanted to tell them the truth. Oh, how I longed to unburden myself, to confess what I was and explain the whole monstrous trick that's been played here, from the unexpected ailment befalling the local pastor down to the emergency services which arrived so promptly and with such remarkable lack of fanfare on the scene of a crime – not to mention the 'district nurse' whom I recognised immediately from those first cruel days after my awakening in the lab beneath Starfleet's HQ. It would have been relief indescribable.

But the cost of that relief would have been too great. I suspected from the start that Trip would catch on that he was the lever that Carl had used against me, and I saw all too clearly how the burden of it was weighing him down. He held himself responsible for every stripe on my back, and he'd never have forgiven himself for it. Instead, somehow I was able to fashion a story that could fit the facts and free him at the same time. If I say so as shouldn't, it was pretty damn good, at that.

(I used to be a dab hand at this sort of thing. Lately I've got rusty. Heaven knows what kindly angel unlocked my tongue on this particular occasion. Pard, perhaps. She used to be pretty decent at it too; it was a very useful skill in the Section. Amazing what you can do when your life depends on it.)

So, my secret past endures. Will I ever find the right time and sufficient courage to reveal it in all its ugliness?

I suspect not.

But until I do, the trust and honesty that Hoshi so eloquently and fairly demanded are not possible.

Are love and deceit compatible? Can one live an honest life with a secret like mine 'safely' buried?

I don't know. For the rest of my life it will be there, like a trapdoor under my feet, waiting to open and plunge me back into hell. But until it does, that's where it will stay. Hoshi and Trip are creatures of the light; I don't think they could bear to know the depth of the darkness I used to belong to – and perhaps still do, in some hidden core of me.

I ought to tell them. I know, from the relief that I felt among the guilt and the pain, that letting them go was the right thing to do. They don't love me; they love a construct of my making, a man incapable of the things I've done too often, too easily and all too well. They love a man who doesn't actually exist at all. But I simply can't find the courage to make that severance final. I love them, and weak and selfish and deceitful as it proves me, I can't bear to let them go.

Some day the secret may yet come out. But as I hold them, thanking a God I don't believe in that we've all got through this more or less intact, I'm certain of only one thing.

It won't be today. 

**The End.**

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